Starter House

by Sonja Condit

  He wanted to tell her. “You’ll die,” he said. “What you’re doing. You’ll die.”

  Jeanne crushed her small white hands together over her sick heart. She had such pretty hands, the prettiest part of her. “He says he’ll kill me,” she said.

  “I called them,” Jeanne’s mother said from the living room. She didn’t come into the kitchen. She hardly ever got out of the recliner because her knees hurt. “The cops are coming, Lex!” she shouted. “They gone shoot you in the head.”

  He didn’t believe her. The phone was on a sideboard across the room from the recliner. Big Jeanne wouldn’t be out of the chair yet.

  He hadn’t meant to threaten her. It was so hard. His thoughts were real, and the words never came right. Jeanne’s pretty hands. There was a pleat where the fat folded over her wrists, and then the fine small hands, like they were sewn on. The rest of Jeanne could be like that, fine and pretty and perfect. “You’re sick,” he said.

  “You’re the one who’s sick, taking pictures through my window!”

  “I love you,” he said. That could never be the wrong thing to say.

  “That’s some sick crazy love,” Jeanne said. “I was fourteen when we met.”

  Lex unbuckled Theo from the car seat. “She needs a clean diaper.”

  “I’m her mama and I’m the one who says what she needs. You put her down.”

  The camera was next to Jeanne’s right foot. Another second and she’d see it and stomp on it, and where would his evidence be then? “I need to take care of you,” he said.

  “Mama! Call the cops. He’s threatening me.”

  “I need you to listen to me. I need to take care of you. You’re sick.”

  “Mama!”

  A metallic groan and a thump came from the other room: big Jeanne lowering the footrest of the recliner. Lex had no time, and he had to get the camera. “Here,” he said, pushing Theo into Jeanne’s arms. Theo laughed and grabbed her mother’s cheeks. Lex lunged for the camera. The view screen was broken off, but the memory card looked okay. “I want to take care of you,” he said. He took out his wallet and gave Jeanne a twenty-dollar bill.

  She laughed angrily. “Twenty bucks, and what about the window?”

  “I’ll send you a check tomorrow.” The old man would have to pay for it. Lex couldn’t afford it, that big window, three or four hundred bucks. And it must have been cracked already, otherwise there was no way the camera could have broken it. He wasn’t going to argue with Jeanne, though. “Don’t call the cops.”

  “I got my finger on the nine,” Big Jeanne said from the other room.

  Jeanne looked at the camera and the window. Too late, Lex remembered she was clever; people forgot that about her. Her eyes looked dull and small, but her mind belonged to the pretty hands, so clever and so quick. “I can take pictures, too,” she said. “My lawyer knows your lawyer. She says she can eat him for lunch. I’ll get a restraining order. I’ll have you arrested. Get out of my house.”

  “I only want to help you.”

  “I’ve had enough of your help.” She held the baby out to him. The thick little legs, thicker than zucchinis, kicked in the air, and the baby fussed, protesting against the lack of support. “Say good-bye,” Jeanne said. “In five years, she won’t know your name.”

  Lex left through the window. He grabbed the frame as he jumped from the room, and the broken glass cut his hand. He bled all the way back to his car. When he took the memory card out of the camera, it was still whole. He had his evidence.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ELLA DANE CLEANED THE ROOM while Lacey went outside to pick up the glass. Lacey kept looking over her shoulder, sensing Drew’s proximity. She never saw him, and the house had a dull, sulky feel that made her lower the thermostat, though it wasn’t exactly heat. The air pressed in through her pores and left a sour taste in her mouth.

  Eric rolled his eyes at Lacey’s story about how the wind had thrown a branch through Ella Dane’s window, but he was glad to let Lacey take care of the repairs, and Harry Rakoczy’s handyman was quick about the window, though he kept promising to come back to finish the ceiling and then canceling at the last minute. Had something in the house disturbed him? More likely it was Lacey’s own fault, for paying him in full for the entire job instead of withholding half until the ceiling was done.

  All through Labor Day weekend, Ella Dane filled the house with lavender candles and spent ten minutes in every room each day, meditating and singing lullabies. She phoned her friend Jack and told him her experiences. A chill in the kitchen, another in the hallway. Lacey didn’t think the candles and lullabies would help, yet there was no sign of Drew, so maybe there was something to it after all. She felt uneasily that Drew was only waiting, biding his time; lullabies would not sing him away.

  Whatever their effect on Drew, the lullabies got rid of Eric very effectively. He spent the whole weekend holed up in his office, and he didn’t ask why Ella Dane had switched from “Om Mani Padme Hum” to “Hush Little Baby,” which was just as well. Lacey had no intention of telling him.

  Lacey felt less married every day. The last time she’d felt truly in harmony with Eric was—when? Coming home from the hospital, when she saw the furniture—could she truly be that shallow? Now she was just a chore on his list: water the grass, answer e-mail, check on Lacey. Solitude gave her time to think, but the time did her no good; her thoughts chased each other in an endless circle. Was Drew a trespasser—was he a ghost, so tangible, so real? Should she ask for Ella Dane’s help or should she deal with Drew (whatever he was) on her own? Should she tell Eric, and if she did, then what should she tell him? The only way Eric would believe in Drew’s existence would be if they met face-to-face, and maybe not even then. Lacey imagined herself saying to Eric, “This house is haunted”—no, there was no possible way that conversation could end well.

  She had to take care of Drew herself. To hand that responsibility to Ella Dane would be to abdicate control of the house. Whatever he was, she could handle him—civilize the trespasser, tame the ghost. Real or not, he was a noisy boy, and she a teacher who kept a lively room. By her third year, her principal knew her strengths and gave her the loudest of the loud, the unmedicated ADHDs, the brilliant and bored, the illiterate and belligerent, the squirmy worms. Usually those boys were separated, spread out two or three per room. This last year, Lacey’d had ten of them. They all ended reading at or above grade level, not one of them suspended or expelled. If she could handle that crowd, she could take care of Drew.

  On the Tuesday after Labor Day, she went shopping for school supplies as if buying for a classroom: crayons, construction paper, copy paper, safety scissors—the talismans of her competence. Though she waited for Drew all day Wednesday, and Thursday morning, the house was quiet. Nothing fell but sunlight from the porthole window. On Thursday afternoon, she came home from her appointment with Dr. Vlk full of good news with no one to tell.

  The baby weighed slightly more than a pound, by Dr. Vlk’s estimate, perfect for his age, and he could hear. Lacey laid her hand over the bump, and when Dr. Vlk clapped, the baby twitched. She didn’t want to disturb Eric at work, and Ella Dane had picked up a part-time job in the gift shop of a holistic spa. But she had to tell someone.

  She paid off the taxi and stood in her driveway as it left. She really needed a car of her own. Dr. Vlk said she could drive again, and she was officially off the semi-bed-rest limitations, except she still should stay away from the stairs.

  She’d been putting this off day by day, waiting for the perfect time to ask Harry Rakoczy about Drew. But there would never be a perfect time to say Did you sell me a haunted house?, and he had already deflected her earlier questions about Drew; she had no rubric and no plan for the conversation. What did he know about her house, and why hadn’t he warned her?

  Music rang from Harry’s house, as always. He came to the door with a remote in his hand, and when he saw her, he clicked a button and the music stopped. “Lacey
Miszlak!” he said. “What a pleasant surprise. I have a student soon, and I made coffee. It’s one of those students. About as musical as a constipated frog, poor kid. Come on in.”

  “No coffee for me, thanks. Baby no like.” She patted the bump.

  “Orange juice? And how is baby?”

  “Twenty-four weeks and he’s perfect; he’s growing. Dr. Vlk did ultrasounds; look at him! Isn’t he beautiful?” She showed him the grainy blur, arcs of black and white crossing through the image. “Look. There’s his face. Look at his tiny nose, it’s so cute. Those are his knees. He’s got toenails. Imagine, real live toenails.”

  Harry took the pictures. “Is he sucking his thumb?”

  “Adorable, right?”

  Harry led Lacey to the kitchen and poured her a glass of juice. She tried not to make faces at the smell of his coffee, because she wanted more than a few oohs and aahs over her baby. She’d hoped the words would come, but she couldn’t bring herself to say, I think my house is haunted and I want you to tell me what you know. That was crazy talk.

  “How are you liking the house?” Harry asked.

  There’d never be a better opening. “Have people ever said anything about it? Anything weird?” Not even Ella Dane went so far as to say the house was haunted, even after what Drew did to her room. Troubled was what Ella Dane said. Psychically active. In need of intervention.

  “Are you hearing noises?” Harry’s face was smooth, and his dark eyes met Lacey’s with warmth and concern. But he was a performer; he’d spent half his life onstage and the other half teaching, which was another kind of stage, individual and intimate. Harry leaned forward across the table and lowered his hands over hers. Lacey had used that exact soothing touch on children who were frantic over some disagreement with a friend. Distress flashed across his face, wrinkling the skin above his eyes, leaving his mouth unmoved. Whatever he said next would be a comforting lie.

  “There were squirrels in the attic three years ago,” he said. “Maybe they’ve gotten in again.”

  On the day they found the house, CarolAnna had tried to warn them. People died here, she’d said, and Harry had smoothed the words away: A long time ago. True, and also a lie. She pulled her hands out of his and said, “There’s something in the house.”

  “I tested for mold,” Harry said. “The termite contract never lapsed.” He looked so honest and innocent, such a sweet old man. But he kept talking, as liars always did. “The radon test came up negative.”

  “Something’s not right. Didn’t anybody see something?”

  He was shaking his head. The teacher voice worked on some adults, but not this one. Something moved deep under the skin of his face—a flick of the lower eyelids, a downward pull on the corners of his mouth—then he caught himself and pulled the mouth up into a smile, even forced a laugh. “What could there be to see?” he said.

  Lacey couldn’t stand it another second, sitting at his table, drinking his tea. She pushed her chair back and took her glass to the sink. “Is there something wrong?” he said behind her, and if she hadn’t seen that false face a moment ago, she would have found his tone of warm solicitude entirely convincing. She filled the glass with cold water and drank it quickly.

  There were framed pictures on the kitchen windowsill, pictures filling every foot of wall space, more pictures on top of the refrigerator. He must spend hours dusting. She found herself staring at half a face, a frame hidden behind another frame. Carefully, she put the glass in the sink. Glass chimed against steel, loud in the breathless room.

  “Who is this?” she asked.

  It was a small boy in a tuxedo. Behind him, a black piano mirrored stage lights and swallowed the child’s black suit, leaving only his face and hands. His left hand clutched the side of the keyboard, and his blond hair fell across his forehead.

  Harry reached for the picture, and Lacey held it in both hands, turning it in the sunlight. “This is my son, Ted,” he said. “When he was little.”

  “He’s in Australia, right?”

  “Yes, he’s a baritone, sings at Sydney most of the time, a bit of Rossini all over the world, you want the barber of Seville, Ted Rakoczy’s your man.”

  He was babbling. Trying to talk his way over something. Too much explanation; truth did not need this much defense. This child was almost Drew, except the hair was darker, the eyebrows brown instead of blond. “Did you ever have any other kids?” Lacey asked, looking at the little boy’s sweet smile.

  Harry moved faster than she expected, twitching the frame from her hand and putting the picture back in its place. “Why do you ask?”

  It was Lacey’s turn to babble. “We can’t decide if we should try for another baby right away, or wait a few years. Some people say you should have them quick, and other people say you should space them out, what do you think?”

  “I think nobody can tell you what to do,” Harry said firmly, “but I’m not the one to ask. We only had Ted.”

  She kept up the chatter of siblings and family spacing as she let Harry lead her from the house. So that was his son the opera singer. Not Drew, and not a brother if Harry was telling the truth about Ted being an only child, but a close relative. Harry knew Drew, no matter how he went on about termites and radon, but he’d never admit it. She’d have to find some other source.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “HAPPY THURSDAY,” SAMMIE SAID, coming into Eric’s office with the Hall file.

  “What’s so happy?” Eric looked up from his computer. He had just finished transferring money from savings to checking to cover Lacey’s check to the handyman who had fixed Ella Dane’s window—whatever Ella Dane had been doing in there, moon dances or some kind of hyperactive yoga, there was no way a branch had caused that damage. It was easier to pay than to argue. He’d have to close the savings account; this transfer had put the balance below the minimum, and the bank would charge ten dollars a month to keep it open.

  And this was his life now. He couldn’t even keep three hundred dollars in a savings account.

  Sammie laughed. “After this, the rest of the week’s wall-to-wall judies. You need to get this guy in on Monday or Tuesday. Thursday’s too late.”

  Eric shrugged her suggestion away and snapped his fingers for the file.

  She shook it at him. “You don’t get like that,” she said. “Snapping your fingers at me. I don’t think so. You listen. These nut clients, you don’t want to deal with them on a Thursday or Friday.”

  “Why not?”

  “You give them bad news early in the week. They go back to work. By the weekend, they’re mad at somebody else. You’ve got to take him seriously. Always take the nuts seriously, ’specially the ones who know where you live.”

  “Lex Hall doesn’t know where I live.”

  Sammie dropped the file on his desk. “You wish. Happy Thursday.”

  The top page was Sammie’s précis of her investigation into Lexington Hall. His legal record: twice, he’d reported neighbors to DHHS, and both cases were dismissed. Both families sued, and one lost the case because Lex had recorded the noises. The second family settled for three thousand dollars. The child was hospitalized with a fractured shoulder four months later and was removed from the parents’ custody.

  Then there was one case of simple assault. Could this be the dirt that Cambrick MacAvoy mentioned? Again, children were involved. Last year, Lex Hall, recently promoted to produce manager at MacArthur’s, had seen a woman send her children through the store to shoplift. Three children, the oldest only eight, loaded up on meat and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals. He tackled the woman in the parking lot. Lex and the mother were arrested. When the dust cleared, the prosecutor dropped the charges against Lex; the children were taken into the system.

  So: righteous indignation in defense of the young. Not exactly a deal breaker in family court. What had Sammie meant, Lex Hall knew where he lived? He riffled Sammie’s printouts and photocopies—if all this represented billable hours, she must have blown th
rough Lex’s retainer and then some—and he had only five minutes before the man arrived.

  Sammie’s note:

  Records of Lexington Hall begin at age 20. No information prior to 1983. No birth certificate, no educational records, no military record. First legal appearance of LH: sold 571 Forrester Lane to Harry Rakoczy in 1983.

  Eric felt as if he’d walked around a corner and met himself coming the other way. The Miszlaks’ house, Harry Rakoczy’s house, Lex Hall’s house . . . What did it mean?

  Sammie buzzed him. “Mr. Hall is here,” she said in her receptionist voice.

  “Thanks, Sammie. Listen, about that property, what about its title history?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “I’ll look into that. Mr. Hall’s coming right in.”

  He opened the door for Lex, who entered with a blue nylon shopping bag from MacArthur’s, and the scent of pineapple. He thumped the bag onto Eric’s desk. “Could you move that to the floor, please, Mr. Hall?” Eric said mildly.

  Lex set it on the floor, then reached in and pulled out a pineapple, the largest Eric had ever seen, and put it on the desk. “This is a big pineapple,” Lex announced.

  “It truly is, Mr. Hall.”

  “I brought it for a present.” Most of its scales were golden, some streaked with orange, and juice glistened in its seams and creases. “It’s ripe. Most people buy the pineapple green and eat it green.”

  “Mr. Hall, we need to go over some things. There’s a temporary custody and visitation order.”

  “When do I get my baby?”

  Eric hated this part. “There were problems. The test you took, the MMPI—the personality test—it came back unresponsive.”

  “Did I fail?”

  “It means you were nervous on the day you took the test, and they couldn’t get a clear reading on you.” He couldn’t get a clear reading on Lex, even face-to-face. The man was opaque. The flesh around his eyes never moved, and his mouth twitched as if he were talking to himself, practicing what to say. He was forty-eight, supposedly. If he claimed seventy, nobody would blink. “It means you’ll have to take it again. You just relax and answer the questions truthfully.”