The House Guest

by Rosa Sophia

Kat couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  “I got to be good friends with Phillip. Then I realized how much I hated Dad.” Ryman gulped. “At first I only wanted to get him out of jail, but then I-I realized that I wanted him dead. I learned about the murders. I found out about Julie’s relationship with Daddy. P-Phillip told me. Then I just wished he were dead and I-I hated Julie for what she did.”

  “What do you mean?” Kat trembled as she pressed the gun harder against his head. “Julie never did anything.”

  “She seduced my father. She ruined him. She made him kill. God, I hate women.” He shook his head, back and forth. “I hate them so much. All so—so conniving.”

  “Keep talking.”

  “I became obsessed with the history, obsessed with the Maslins and the death that followed them. Julie and Phillip were already old and my father was already out of jail, but I wasn’t satisfied.” He shook his head.

  “What did you do?”

  “I figured out Phillip had killed his son. I talked to a few locals and then I lied to Phillip and told him I’d found the body. I made sure I had a weapon with me. He admitted to everything then, after I’d made him think I could get him into prison in a second. Then I…” He laughed evilly. “I killed the bitch and he saw me do it.”

  Kat’s heart skipped a beat. It was all she could do to keep from killing him, to keep from mutilating his disgusting body and sending his fragment of a soul to Hell. “She didn’t die in her sleep?” Kat’s knuckles were growing white. She moved her finger from the trigger because she knew that if she didn’t, he would be dead and then real justice would never be served.

  “I have some connections. I got them to write it off.” He chuckled. “A pillow over the face always does the trick. I threatened Phillip. I told him that if he tipped off the cops, I would tell the world he’d killed John. And then it would only be a matter of time before somebody found that body.”

  “That’s how you killed Jonathan,” Kat said, her voice hoarse. “You suffocated him.”

  “Oh, yes,” Ryman agreed. “It feels good getting this out in the open.”

  “You followed us back to my house, didn’t you?”

  “Oh, no, not quite. I wasn’t the one Phillip was paying to watch Jonathan.”

  “Who was it, then? You killed your father, but who followed us home?”

  “Archie Dunne. He lives across the street from Jonathan Stark.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Kat muttered.

  “He was about to rat me out anyway. Since Phillip’s been in the home, he hasn’t had the means to pay Archie. Either way, one of us or both of us would have been caught. Archie called me and told me to be at the Maslin house that night. I didn’t mind killing him.”

  “Why? He was your father!”

  “He was a murderer. Or so I thought.” Ryman’s expression was grim. “I killed an innocent man. I didn’t know. I hated him because he was a killer. And then, after I’d killed him, or before…he just wasn’t.”

  Kat lowered the gun. It was only a second later, just after she let her guard down, that the weapon was wrested from her grasp. She tried to get it back, but Ryman pushed her down and over the epoxy-covered desk. Papers scattered everywhere and the lawyer fled to the other side of the small room. Kat staggered to her feet.

  He was going to kill her. He grinned as he pointed the gun in her direction. She saw everything in her mind, all that she had worked for—all of it going to waste. But then, just as quickly, he moved the gun and positioned it over his temple. There was a soft, muffled noise. A moment later, Katherine was sharing space with a dead man. On the floor, surrounded by papers and pencils, Ryman’s body crumpled, still sporting a tragic, insane smile. Blood and brains had splattered against the wall.

  Kat picked up her tape recorder and left the building. Ryman was dead and she couldn’t possibly be blamed for it. She felt numb, realizing one of her biggest concerns in that moment was how she would explain to her friend that she’d lost his gun. There was a bit of blood on her, but she didn’t care. She wiped some of it off her face as she passed a large woman in the hallway.

  “Where’s Allen?” the woman asked shakily. Kat walked past her, barely acknowledging her presence. Just as Kat pushed open the front door, she spoke.

  “You’d better call the cops. He just killed himself.”

  ***

  Kat cleaned up and located Janis Crow’s office in Souderton. She stepped into the building, wringing her hands. She wasn’t entirely sure why she was there. All she knew was she wanted someone to talk to.

  On one wall, an abstract artist had depicted happiness as an assortment of shapes and colors. On another, The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory hung beneath a shining glass frame. Kat imagined Dr. Janis Crow working late in the office, purposely hanging these paintings with great care, hoping her clients would see them and observe the order in which they hung told an almost indecipherable story.

  “Can I help you? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you,” the receptionist quickly added. Kat realized that she must have startled. She shivered despite the warm temperature in the office building. “Are you here for an appointment?” the woman at the front desk inquired cautiously. She was a tiny brunette with worry lines all along her face.

  Good thing she works for a psychologist, Kat thought to herself. She looks like she needs some help.

  “Uh, no,” Kat said aloud. “I’m a friend of Janis. Is she here?” She slipped off her coat. “I’m not really sure what time it is.” Kat drew closer to the reception desk, her hands clasped in front of her, hidden beneath her navy blue coat.

  “Your name, please?”

  “I’m Kat. Katherine Maslin.”

  The receptionist smiled reassuringly. “Janis is busy with someone right now, but she’ll be finished soon. You can have a seat anywhere you like. There’re magazines and, if those bore you, I’ve got a couple good books back here.” The brunette shrugged. “Dr. Crow’s sessions usually run a few minutes over, just so you know.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Another bright grin lit up the room before the middle-aged woman returned to her work. Kat found a seat on a comfortable couch, a piece of furniture that she never would have expected to see in a regular psychologist’s office. Especially since it was adorned with tie-dyed fabric and colorful throw pillows.

  Even down to the smallest detail, the waiting room was odd indeed. Right next to Teen People and Newsweek were several copies of Weird Tales. Kat immediately immersed herself in unusual fiction, finding that it wasn’t as wonderful an escape as she had hoped. All she could think about was John Maslin, Allen Ryman, and how she had seen the late lawyer blow his own brains out right in front of her.

  When another client entered the waiting room, Kat mistook him for Phillip when she caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye. Her sharp intake of breath caused the receptionist to ask if she was all right.

  While Kat was reading a reprint of one of Robert E. Howard’s stories, she heard a door on the far side of the room open with a slight squeal of the hinges. A woman was talking to the receptionist.

  “And after my one-thirty, I’m going for something to eat, so hold my calls.” There were footsteps. “Katherine?”

  “Janis, I’m sorry to bother you.” Kat dropped the magazine and stood up. “I just needed someone to talk to. Do you have another session coming up?”

  “Actually, you’re in luck. I’m free. Come on into my office, dear.”

  Kat nodded and followed Janis Crow across the waiting room.

  She was wearing a long black skirt and an orange silk shirt with strange designs and tassels hanging off the bottom edges. She was plump and in her late forties, her curly red hair was pulled back in a bun, a wide smile beneath the spectacles that perched on her small nose. She took a seat in an armchair and sipped from a glass of water.

  Kat carefully lowered herself onto a couch across from Janis.


  “Is everything all right, Katherine?”

  “Call me Kat. And…no.”

  “Okay. Did something happen?”

  “This is between us, right?” For some reason, Kat felt she could trust her.

  Janis raised an eyebrow and adjusted her glasses. “It is.” She sounded uncertain.

  Kat didn’t waste time. “Allen Ryman’s dead.”

  Janis gasped. She knew what had happened to Katherine through what Corry had told her. It was only a smattering of the facts, a brief outline of what had occurred during the summer, but Janis wasn’t a skeptic. She believed Katherine. She had seen real schizophrenics, and Kat didn’t exhibit the qualities of someone who was deeply troubled. She was just a young woman who had seen too much.

  “What happened?”

  “I confronted him.” Kat pulled a tape recorder out of her coat pocket. “I want you to hold onto this for me. It’s his entire confession. In case something happens to me, you’ll have it. He killed Jonathan. The tape says it all. He also killed my grandmother.” Janis’s mouth fell open. “Jonathan Stark was Allen’s father. He was getting revenge. He saw Julie as the bad guy who turned his father into a monster. After he killed Jonathan, he found out that his father wasn’t the murderer. I guess he accidentally dragged a confession out of Phillip. Maybe Phillip misunderstood and thought Allen knew about more than just the death of John Maslin.”

  “My God. Call the police, Kat, please.”

  “I just wanted you to know about this before I called anyone. Hide that tape.”

  “I will.” The two women stood up. Janis wrapped her arms around Katherine. “Stay safe, sweetie. Keep those sunglasses on. And don’t let anybody see your hair.” She smiled and kissed Kat on the cheek.

  “Can I use your phone?”

  “Sure.”

  She dialed 911.

  ***

  The tape of her interrogation of Ryman was all she needed to initiate a search for the body of Earl Woodworth. Luckily, John’s body was still there, as well as the evidence within the canvas bag. Katherine entertained the idea that Julie had been in the woods all that time, watching over John’s remains to ensure they didn’t get into the wrong hands. It had to have been some kind of spiritual intervention that kept Kat’s attackers from catching her in the act of investigating the grave.

  Upon informing Ike Averson of the new developments, the Portland cop immediately got on a plane and flew down to Pennsylvania, where Kat met up with her cousin for the first time in many years. Having realized how he helped her, Ike was stunned. He went with several other police officers to the nursing home in Tinicum. When the receptionist was told Phillip Maslin was in trouble, the woman scoffed, for she simply couldn’t believe a delusional old man was wanted by the law.

  The room in the Maslin house that Katherine had barely set foot in soon became a main topic of conversation between forensics and police officers. Never in a million years would Kat have thought Earl’s body was buried in the fireplace of the summer kitchen.

  Later on in the month, a forensics team deduced Stark couldn’t have killed Earl Woodworth. His body had been there since before Stark had ever arrived at the Maslin homestead.

  Kat thought back to how Julie told her she didn’t like going into the living room. Now, Kat knew it hadn’t been the body Julie had been shying away from, but the memory. Earl Woodworth must have been killed in the living room, and then dragged down to the summer kitchen. The flagstones had been lifted and the dirt below had been dug into, deep enough to hide a body.

  Phillip’s jealously, his need for absolute control, had driven him to murder.

  When they dragged the old man out of the nursing home, Kat looked on, observing his last fight for freedom as well as the astonished expressions on the faces of the nurses. Several hay colored hairs were found on Earl’s body. One hair miraculously retained a tiny root. That root was tested and the DNA matched perfectly with Phillip’s. Many years ago, DNA would have never entered into the case. Now, the technology was available.

  As for the identities of Katherine’s assailants, both the police and the FBI surmised Allen Ryman had been one of them. Ryman was dead and Phillip was in jail. Archie Dunne would go to trial and hopefully, Ryman’s taped confession would be enough to book him.

  Katherine knew Dunne was guilty, so she talked to Peter Edwards about investigating his house. Edwards and Katherine went to Quiet Meadows on a rainy Friday, with Ike Averson along for the ride. Kat explained there had been two sets of footsteps on the night that she had been abducted. During Kat’s meeting with Ryman at the diner, he had been dressed in a suit and shining black shoes, which accounted for the clicking footsteps she had heard.

  Dunne’s house was normal in appearance, both on the outside and the inside. The gardens weren’t as nice as Stark’s had been, but there was nothing odd about the place. Nothing that suggested anything suspicious.

  The front door led into a small foyer. From there, the three visitors stepped into a living room. Edwards was nervously fingering the search warrant in his pocket.

  “What do you think, Katherine?” he asked. Ike stepped up and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. Technically, she wasn’t supposed to be there. It was against every rule in the book to involve a citizen in a search of someone’s house. They had snuck her in.

  “Wood floors,” she noted, stepping forward. “They had me in a cushioned chair, I think. That one, maybe.” She pointed to an armchair across the room.

  “Let’s see.” Edwards went over to the chair and took a plastic glove out of his pocket. He put it on and knelt down, inspecting the floor. At first, everything seemed normal—until a spot of blood was found wedged in between the floorboards, like a tangible secret.

  When the blood was tested, it matched Katherine’s. There was no doubt that she had been in Dunne’s house, tied up in the single chair that furnished the small living room. Katherine left Quiet Meadows with the knowledge that one tiny drop of blood would condemn Archie Dunne. Both she and Jake were cleared as suspects in the murder of Jonathan Stark.

  Deep within Phillip Maslin, there had been a disturbance that was broad yet narrow, incomprehensible yet easy to understand. And so life went on and Katherine stopped dreaming of Julie. One last time, she saw her walk down those stairs, never to return again.

  Out, out, brief candle!

  ***

  The restaurant wasn’t very busy that night. The couple got a table in a far corner, where they sat, nervous, as though their dinner together was a first date. Kat’s braided hair trailed down the middle of her back, along the dark blue dress she’d chosen from her closet an hour earlier. Jake reached across the table and took her hand.

  “You never wear that,” he said, nodding toward her outfit.

  “Never had the need. But I figured I would dress up tonight.”

  Jake smiled. He was wearing a suit. For Jake and Katherine, this was as fancy as it got.

  “I missed you,” he muttered.

  “Then why did you leave?” Kat glanced up, her eyes filling with tears. “I called everyone we know, Jake, before I found out that you’d gone to your friend’s house. What were you trying to do, terrify me?”

  “Now you know how I feel.”

  She yanked her hand away from his. For a moment, the two of them sat in complete silence. The engagement ring on Katherine’s finger glimmered in the soft light. The waiter visited their table. They ordered wine.

  “I just want things to be the way they were,” Kat said. “I’m tired of being unhappy.”

  “What would make you happy?”

  “Being with you.”

  Jake stood up and went to the other side of the table. He sat down beside Katherine and wrapped his arms around her.

  “Sounds good to me.” He kissed her. “I love you, Katherine. Always have, always will.”

  “I love you too, Jake.”

  ***

  Two weeks later, it was a relatively warm Wednesday. Kat woke
up and realized something: she felt good. She threw herself out of bed and shot straight to the closet, waking up Jake with her frantic clamor. They were back in the Maslin farmstead, but Kat was ready to leave it behind. He watched her move about before uttering his sleepy words.

  “What in the world are you doing?” He yawned and stretched.

  “Getting ready.” The closet muffled Kat’s voice.

  “For what?”

  “Moving.” She suddenly emerged, pulling with her a pile of clothes that drooped against the floorboards.

  “What?”

  “I have to get out of here. What do you think of Canada? I wonder how hard it is to get citizenship. Or across the country, even? How about Nevada?”

  “Kat, you can’t just make a split-second decision like that. We have to sell the house first, we have to plan a—wait a second, why in the world do you want to leave Pennsylvania?”

  “Too many bad memories. I’ve stopped dreaming of Julie, I’m no longer being blamed for Jonathan’s death, and I don’t even have to testify at Phillip’s trial if I don’t want to. This is perfect. Oh, guess what that cop told me, the one who came over the other day?”

  “Kat—”

  “He said some woman burst into the police station and wanted to know why Phillip was being charged for murder. It was Earl Woodworth’s widow. She claimed Phillip helped their family for a long time after Earl’s death—getting the tomato crop ready, doing things around the house—and my God, I just can’t believe it.” Kat dove back into the closet and pulled out a couple boxes, pushing them out onto the floor. “She wouldn’t believe he was guilty of anything. She requested to be allowed to speak at the trial, but they decided she was too aggressive and unstable. On top of that, Archie Dunne actually admitted to being the one who interrogated me, since they found my blood in his house.”

  “Kat—”

  “What?” Finally, she stopped moving.

  “If you want to leave without me, you can.” Jake stretched out, and stared up at the ceiling.