Murder House

by Jordan Castillo Price

  “I have a recipe for Instant Pot chicken that everyone always raves about.”

  It was obvious that any excuse I came up with would only make Terri-Anne ramp up her game. Plus, more hemming and hawing from me would only make me look suspicious. I was pretty sure I could question Hale, even in a room full of people. In fact, maybe they’d even provide some camouflage.

  “Okay, great. Chicken it is.” I turned to Hale. “Would seven o’clock work for you?”

  “I, sadly, shall not be joining you tonight.” After all that? Damn it. He buttoned up his caped coat and headed toward the door. His parting shot was, “Never fear, Victor. Undoubtedly, we’ll run into each other soon enough. We live but a mere hand’s breadth apart.”

  9

  Bly didn’t seem disappointed that I’d managed to let Hale slip through my fingers. “Surveillance requires a huge amount of patience,” he told me. “I can’t even count how many long nights I sat in a car, staring at a known crackhouse and scarfing down donuts, then ended up with nothing to show for it. You made contact the first day. That’s a big step.”

  He pulled off his shirt and I immediately averted my eyes. Probably because I was perched on the edge of our bed with my jeans undone…only because I could barely breathe in them. But between our various states of undress and the fact that I was in bed—and the thought of Sylvester getting off on the notion of us together—how could I possibly not feel pervy?

  Bly turned to the closet. He had it all to himself since I hadn’t bothered relocating my stuff from the third floor. As he rifled through the clothes, he said, “Kinda thought this setup would be easier with an agent who was actually gay. Just goes to show how easy it is to judge a situation all wrong, even for an empath.” He pulled on a snug, long-sleeved knit top that made him look particularly chesty. “Listen. I get that the situation is weird. But don’t worry about it. I know when someone wants to jump my bones, and I also know that isn’t what’s going on here. So, you and me, we’re cool. Okay?”

  Somewhat. Although the thought that he could read me like a second-hand book brought its own special awkwardness to the mix.

  “And don’t forget your wedding band. Our personas fought hard for the right to get married, remember?”

  Crap. I had to visit every sink in the house before I found my plain gold ring perched next to the soap. At least locating a suitable hostess gift was a lot easier. Unlike most newly-moved couples, we had a detailed inventory of what we actually owned and which numbered box it could be found in. Once Bly pinpointed a bottle of wine in our kitchen stash, we headed across the street with it like a pair of convincing neighborly married gays.

  Terri-Anne lived in a big house on a wide lot. I hadn’t realized how claustrophobic the townhouse felt until I got out of it…or maybe I’d just figured it was the jeans. We rang the doorbell and plastered on a couple of smiles, and she greeted us at the door. I did my best not to flinch at the small touches Bly landed on me. Small of the back, going through the door. Shoulder, as he thanked her for the invitation. Squeeze of the hand when he took my coat and handed it to the hostess.

  “This is my husband Brian,” she said, and a stoic, middle-aged white guy pried himself off a recliner and came over to greet us. “And that’s our daughter, Madison.” The gawky tweenish girl gave us a distracted hand-wave from the couch. She was busy doing something crafty on a TV tray with her eyes glued to the set, where an episode of Clairvoyage showed yet another hull breech. You’d swear the ship was made of chewing gum wrappers and spit, the way it’s always falling apart.

  “Pleased to meet you. Jack Bligh. And you’ve met Vic, my husband.” Madison’s eyes lit on us as if being gay made us suddenly more interesting, but when she caught me noticing, she got back to her crafting in the casually disdainful way of youth. The wine was passed along. Handshakes all around. “Thanks so much for having us over—we’re still unpacking. You’d be amazed how appealing a home-cooked meal can be when you haven’t had one in a while.”

  Now, that was the understatement of the century.

  Terri-Anne gave us a brief tour of the downstairs. Hard to say what her decorating style was. Almost minimal, but with weird touches of basketry and distressed antiques? That probably had a name, but I couldn’t begin to guess what it might be. Clean enough, I supposed. And not haunted.

  Terri-Anne encouraged us all to sit, but when her husband ventured, “So…what do you do?” I had a carrot-in-the-headlights moment, and opted to follow her into the kitchen while Bly floated our cover story.

  She seemed surprised, and even a little flustered. “Oh, you don’t have to help. I’ve got this.”

  “It’s no problem. You shouldn’t have to carry this all out yourself—whoa. Is that dessert?” A fruity-looking deconstructed pastry was cooling on the counter, looking like something from a magazine. The golden brown crust sparkled with coarse sugar.

  “Just a quick galette I threw together. The peaches were frozen,” she explained, as if that would deter me from being impressed.

  Maybe dinner wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  Eating, it turned out, was a great excuse to not say anything. Dinner was stunningly good—better, even, than Jacob’s cooking, probably because although Terri-Anne ate very small portions herself, she wasn’t afraid of cream or butter. Every time she or Brian probed for information, I could shove a forkful of chicken into my mouth and let Bly do the talking. He tried to edge the conversation toward something we could actually use. “What can you tell us about the neighborhood?”

  Brian said, “You two should know better than us.”

  Homophobe? Then why the heck was he living in Boystown? Plus, I thought everyone liked gay neighbors, since we always sent the property values skyrocketing. Terri-Anne shot him a venomous look. Madison rolled her eyes dramatically. “Actually, we’re from Skokie,” I said blandly, to spare the two women their mortification.

  Stilted conversation resumed. Bly avoided a few calories by saying he was allergic to peaches, which got Terri-Anne all aflutter about food allergies, and Madison excused herself the moment she finished wolfing down her dessert. There was a brief, semi-friendly argument about who would help clear the table—Bly insisted—and while Brian went off in search of a corkscrew, I wandered into the TV room and perched on the couch beside the kid.

  Several rolls of duct tape in various colors were piled on the TV tray, not just silver, but red and pink, too. Madison unrolled a strip of red with a plastic shriek, then measured it against a mark on the tray and cut off a neat length.

  “What’re you making?” I asked.

  “Valentines.”

  Another memory crumb: a boxful of cheap pre-printed cards, enough for every other kid in the class, and me scrambling to find the least romantic ones to give the other boys, so as to make sure my secret stayed secret. And the girls too, for that matter, so I didn’t inadvertently lead anybody on. Because even at that age, I’d feel funny pretending to be in a relationship with someone I wasn’t really into.

  I watched Madison fold tape for several moments, and when she decided I might have actual interest in what she was doing, she held up the project for my inspection. “It’s not just a heart—it’s a wallet. See?” She pinched the plasticky heart together and a gap opened in the center.

  She handed it to me, and I pulsed it open and shut a few times. “Why doesn’t it stick to itself?”

  “Because of the way it’s layered, sticky sides together. Here, I’ll show you.”

  With Madison’s close instruction, I chose my tape, cut it to length, and began sticking it together. In a way, it was like cooking with Jacob. The long view was lost on me, but dole it out a step at a time, and I wasn’t half bad. As I was trying to make a decent corner point, she said, “My dad’s not really prejudiced. He just says dumb things. Like, all the time.”

  I shrugged. “It’s fine.”

  “I have a friend who’s trans. Or maybe ace. They haven’t picked out a pronoun yet.”


  “Good for…them.”

  She took the lopsided heart from me, corrected a sloppy fold, and handed it back. I was spinning out a fantasy where I could do a little switcheroo to keep Madison in the family and leave Clayton behind, when, apropos of nothing, she said, “You know you live in a murder house. Right?”

  I dropped my duct tape heart. It adhered to the knee of my skinny jeans. I peeled it off and stuck down a corner that didn’t want to stick down. “I know the owner died there. That doesn’t make it a murder house.”

  “The cops don’t know it was a murder. But it totally was.”

  “ME’s report stated natural causes.”

  She snorted. “Okay, Mister CSI…go ahead and think that, if it makes you feel better. But Dad says Mr. Hale would’ve done anything to get her out of there and make sure that townhouse stayed empty. He said no one would ever buy it because it’s cheap and flimsy and the walls are paper thin. And something about the housing bubble.”

  Did I need to admit I didn’t actually understand the housing bubble? “The woman who…lived…in our house. Did you know her well?”

  “Totally. Amelia was pretty cool. She was an animal trainer.”

  I did my best to pretend I hadn’t read her dossier. “Like…teaching dogs to fetch?”

  “Like training exotic animals for TV shows and movies.”

  “Huh.”

  “I’ll show you something awesome she gave me.” Madison led me upstairs to her room, which was all done up in shades of purple, with fairy lights and white shag carpeting. A tall multilevel cage stood beside her desk, a colorful plastic tank with clear tubes snaking all around like a giant amusement park ride.

  Madison opened a hatch and made a clucking sound, and a rodent scampered out to greet her.

  “Is that a—?”

  “Shh!” The critter scampered up her arm and across her shoulders, then dove under her hair. It wrapped around the back of her neck until its face poked out the opposite side. Its whiskers twitched. “They’re Moroccan hamsters.” She winked. It was exaggerated—and painfully cute. “Got it?”

  “O…kay.”

  “This one’s Tuna.” Another, slightly paler so-called hamster appeared at the hatch, and darted up Madison’s outstretched arm, just like the first one. “And this is Peanut Butter.”

  “Because…it likes Peanut Butter?”

  “He,” she corrected me dramatically. “And, no. Peanuts aren’t good for…Moroccan hamsters.”

  Or, apparently, rats either.

  She held out her arm toward me, and Peanut Butter clambered onto her forearm for my inspection. “See his coat? Breeders call the color fawn. But it’s the same exact color as fancy whipped peanut butter.”

  I glanced at the second “hamster” watching me from beneath Madison’s hair. “And the other one?”

  “He’s pretty much obsessed with tuna.” She shook a couple of kibbles out of a treat box and tucked one into her hair. Crunching ensued. “Tuna’s shy, but Peanut Butter is pretty sassy. Wanna give him a treat?”

  When in Rome. “Okay.”

  Madison dropped a kibble into my outstretched palm and I handed it to the rat. He reached out with tiny little people-hands—minus the thumbs—and took it delicately from my grasp. Madison made a bridge with her arm to the hatch, and he stuck the treat in his mouth and scampered back in to hunker down and eat it inside his plastic fort.

  Cute…in a ratty kind of way. But I couldn’t imagine either one of her parents was too keen on having them in their home. “Why did Amelia give them to you?”

  “She trained them,” Madison said. “And she bred them, too, but only when her colony was getting thin.”

  “How many’d be in this colony?”

  Madison shrugged. “It depended on which movies she was working on, plus she lost a lot to a bad respiratory infection one year.” She coaxed Tuna out onto her shoulder. “Most breeders go for things like coat color, markings, eye color. But Amelia only bred her smartest ones. Then she kept the females and gave away the males, but only to people who’d keep them as pets.”

  I supposed it was a logical way of keeping them from breeding you out of house and home. “What happened to the colony after she died?”

  “Mom told me the Humane Society rescued them.”

  I sensed she didn’t really buy it. “But?”

  “I heard Dad say Mr. Hale just called an exterminator.” She disentangled Tuna from her hair, kissed him on the top of the head, and put him back in his plastic house. He sat on his hind legs and attempted to scrub off the kiss.

  We headed back to the living room, where her father shoved a glass of wine into my hand and said, “Not good enough for a long playoff run, but not bad enough to get a top-three draft pick.”

  I wasn’t even sure which flavor of sportball he was trying to get me to talk about, so I gave a vague nod and grunt.

  My fake husband and I stayed for a single glass of wine that neither of us wanted to drink, but couldn’t manage to turn the conversation back to Sylvester Hale. Before I needed to figure out how to refuse a second glass, Bly said something plausible about needing to get to work early and extricated us from the visit. What a relief. I was eager to get back to the murder house and unbutton my pants.

  When the door shut behind us, he said, “God, that was brutal.”

  “Really? You seemed like you were handling it just fine. Was there something going on under the surface that I totally missed? It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “Not the conversation. The food.” Bly flung his coat toward the hall tree and kicked off his shoes. “I gotta go get rid of this.”

  He went upstairs, and a minute later, the sound of retching ensued.

  Madison was right. The walls really were paper thin.

  10

  “Purging sucks,” Bly told me, “but given my situation, it’s unavoidable. There’s only so many allergies I can claim to have before people start getting suspicious.”

  “Couldn’t you just do a few more minutes on the treadmill?”

  “There’s not enough hours in the day to work off the calories in that meal. And don’t get me started on the dessert.” He sipped a glass of seltzer, then ran a hand over his stubbly head, and sighed bitterly. “Damn, that pie smelled like heaven.”

  “I’ve had better,” I lied.

  A real couple would be winding down for the night. The two of us were nothing like a real couple. I debriefed Bly on what the kid had told me and he typed up a lengthy report, and it was well past midnight before the two of us finally turned in.

  My food coma quickly turned to actual sleep, and I was dead to the world when something woke me.

  “No!”

  I woke with a lurch, scrambling for my sidearm, which wasn’t there. And then I realized it wasn’t my nightstand. And the thrashing guy in my bed wasn’t Jacob.

  Bly was sitting up straight, and he’d kicked off all the covers, backing himself against the headboard. He looked spooked, but just for a moment, then he slumped and said, “Aw, sonofa….”

  In my panic, I’d sucked down a bunch of white light and thrown a protective bubble around us. But even in my fear-induced state of hyperawareness, I didn’t see anything around us that hadn’t been put there by fake movers.

  “That hasn’t happened in ages,” he muttered. “Sorry.” He scooped up the blankets off the floor and shook them out over the bed, then climbed back in and rolled to face the wall.

  I lay there in the dark for a long time, wide-eyed, waiting for my heart to stop pounding. While I wasn’t sure exactly what to say, it didn’t seem like I could get away with pretending nothing had happened. Especially when Bly could feel exactly how hard my anxiety wheels were turning. “What the hell was that?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Has saying that ever helped?”

  “Not really.” He sighed and rolled onto his back. “Sometimes crazy dreams jerk me out of sleep. Started happening back when
I was on the force. But like I said, it’s been a while. Strange bed, strange routine, plus I hardly ever drink anymore. Guess I should’ve dumped my wine when Terri-Anne wasn’t looking.”

  Maybe. Or maybe it didn’t do an empath any good to bed down with a bundle of anxiety like me. “D’you want to talk about it?”

  “No need. It’s just some neurons misfiring. Nothing more significant than that.”

  Sure. And I was in the market for some tighter jeans.

  I’d worked homicide for years, and I’d seen plenty of shit I’d never unsee, but once I put away a perp, I didn’t worry about them coming back to find me. (And given how many of my collars eventually walked, maybe I should have.)

  Narcotics was different. Murders were usually self-contained incidents, but being a narc involved not only murders, but territories and gangs—and, of course, the drugs. Maybe you could put away a kingpin. But could you be sure you’ve cleaned up every last one of his soldiers?

  No wonder Bly was so keen to ditch his past. But if he didn’t want to talk about it, I couldn’t force him.

  When he suggested a white noise app to help us sleep, I figured, why not? He mounted his phone on the alarm clock and pulled up some static. It was annoying, at least at first, but it was enough like the channels between the stations on my old TV to eventually knock me out.

  The rest of the night played out pretty much like you’d expect. Nobody was jerking out of a sound sleep. And thankfully, nobody was touching me, either. I still woke up at an ungodly hour, and I still imbibed way too much coffee for any human being by the time Bly came downstairs.

  “They need me at headquarters,” he said, “but you can make some real headway on our case while I’m gone. Since you met Hale yesterday, you have an in to go knock on his door.”

  “What would I say?”

  “Ask for coffee filters, say you don’t know where I packed them. That sounds normal.”

  I supposed it would beat lurking around the dusty used bookstore and hoping to randomly cross paths. Especially when I might be forced to chat about the books, of which I had no opinion whatsoever beyond whether or not I liked the cover.