All Those Who Came Before

by Kathryn Meyer Griffith

  But, Claudia had confided in her earlier in the summer, with the kids long out of the house, and Ryan officially retired, there was sometimes an emptiness in their lives that was hard to fill. Probably another reason Ryan was constantly seeking out new escapades, new ways to make him still feel relevant. Alive. Since he’d retired the man had gone sky-diving, parasailing and had run off to a working cattle ranch for six days. He was constantly searching for a new thrill. It had Claudia worried her husband was no longer content with their mundane life. He wanted something different.

  Abigail stole a hard look at her friend. Tiredness was etched in Claudia’s face. Her eyes were not as lively as usual; her mood seemed downcast. Oh, oh. Something was wrong.

  “Okay, what is it?” Abigail demanded. “What’s wrong? I sense there’s something.”

  Her friend exhaled a sigh and poured a cup of coffee for both of them. “It’s that obvious, huh?”

  “Yep.” Abigail added cream, then sugar, to her coffee, her attention remaining on Claudia. “If it would help to talk about it, whatever it is, go ahead. That’s what friends are for. I’m listening.”

  “The truth is, Ryan is leaving tomorrow for that long postponed and obsessed over African photo safari he’s been talking about for at least a decade. Now that he is retired he says it’s time. Past time. Since his last sister died a year ago and some of his old friends have passed on, as well, he is determined to live what life he has left the way he wants, or the way he believes he should be living it. While he still has breathing friends to accompany him.” Claudia lifted her cup to her lips. Took a sip. “Pete and Jim are going with him.”

  “And–let me guess–you’re not going?” Abigail tried not to smile, but it slipped out anyway. Over the years, Claudia, whenever they’d discussed her husband’s great safari dream had told anyone who would listen that no way was she going to traipse around in the African bush full of lions, tigers, wildebeests and other savage animals that could eat her. She liked to travel and she and Ryan, when they were younger, had seen most of the country and some of the world. Claudia, though, unlike Ryan, had just never had a hankering to go and hike the wilds of the Serengeti or any wilds. She liked the cities and towns.

  “Ha!” Claudia laughed. “Do I look like I’m a book shy of a collection? Not to mention, the best safaris, even photo and not actually big game gun hunting ones, are ludicrously expensive–you wouldn’t believe how much they want for two people–and our retirement savings aren’t that great. Ryan’s construction job was never that lucrative even at the best of times, so we weren’t able to save as much as we would have liked. We have enough to live comfortably, but that’s about all. Our social security isn’t much to brag about and the book store doesn’t produce the profit it once did. That’s probably because of the Internet. People can click a button on their computer and have books delivered right to their front doors. Why drive all the way into town and browse for books in a dusty shop, when you can get them that easy? They can buy the books cheaper, too, off the Internet. Like a lot of brick and mortar stores, bookstores are becoming obsolete. They’re closing their doors all over the country.

  “With our finances the way they are, Ryan and I have to live on a budget if we want our money to last as long as our lives might last. We don’t want to be pinching pennies when we’re in our eighties. If we live that long.

  “So, after moving our income around, tightening our budget even tighter, and balancing out everything, I figured we could only afford for one of us to go on that expensive safari anyway, which left me off the hook. The steep price tag we’re paying isn’t even for one of the fancier safaris, merely a mid-level variety, barely. This is Ryan’s fantasy after all and, for me, a sixty-eight year old woman with arthritis, a bad knee, and a taste for all the creature comforts of civilization, going into the wilderness for three weeks isn’t appealing in the least. When I was younger...perhaps. Not now.”

  “I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t want to go.”

  “Temperatures about what we’re having here, hot as the sun, but no air-conditioning? Ugh-ugh, no thank you. Primitive accommodations in tents? Dust? Mud? No way.” She languidly waved a hand, on which a golden bracelet and rings sparkled, into the air between them in dismissal, then went on, “Snakes, spiders, monster crocodiles, wildebeests, and rhinoceros? I don’t think so. You know hippos can be really aggressive? They attack humans all the time. But I can’t deny Ryan his dream. I know that. I want to see him happy again. Whatever it takes. I’m sick of his moping around. So I told him it was okay to go. He’s in probably the best health he’ll ever be in again, for his age, so why not?”

  “Yeah, why not?” Abigail parroted. “If you can squeeze out the money, do without him for three weeks, it might do him some good to go run around in Africa with his camera. Think of all the stories he’d have to tell when he returned.”

  Claudia smiled. “The adventure will give him enough anecdotes to last for years. You should see him. He’s so excited. Completely rejuvenated. He’s been making plans and dreaming of all the prize-winning photographs, the videos, he’s going to take with the lions and elephants.

  “Did you know that in nineteen thirty there were over ten million elephants in Africa, now there are only roughly around four hundred and fifteen thousand of them left? And that the average elephant weighs around fourteen thousand pounds? Ryan told me that. He said he wanted to do this safari before all the elephants were extinct.” A suppressed sigh. She was trying so hard to be enthusiastic about the whole thing.

  “It sounds as if he’s really into this...trip.”

  “Oh yeah. It’s practically made him young again. He’s running around buying clothes and luggage for the experience. He purchased a better long-distance lens for his camera; a new stand. I made one request...that he’d go with a couple of friends, for safety purposes, and he agreed. So Jim and Pete. But....”

  Abigail nibbled on her cake as she listened to her friend. It was easy to see Claudia needed to vent. So she let her. “But?”

  “I know it’s childish of me, but we’ve been married forty-five years and haven’t often been apart. When I was in the hospital having our children or when Ryan got hurt that time on the construction site we were separated, but only for a couple of days each time, and those occasions were years ago. That six days he was rustling cattle was really hard, and it wasn’t all that long ago. He called me every night. I knew he was safe.

  “But this time he’ll be gone three weeks in a place I feel is treacherous. That’s a lot of time for me to worry. And at our age we never know how long we have left on this earth. I don’t want to waste any of it without him. I’ll really miss him, don’t want him to go, but I can’t tell him that. I have to let him go.” She stared around the store, her eyes lovingly skimming the shelves crammed with books. “I have my dream, what makes me happy, so how can I keep him from his? Especially....”

  Claudia ceased speaking. An expression crept across her face which, to Abigail, seemed more a look of fear than anything else. “You know, I have this older sister, Cordelia?”

  “You’ve spoken of her. She lives up in Seattle, right? She and her husband were teachers? Retired now?”

  “Yes to both. Cordelia, and her husband Jasper, are older than I am. They’ve been retired for a decade. And the last year or so I’ve been communicating frequently with my sister on the phone, emails or with direct messenges on Facebook. She wants to visit, but she’s terrified of airplanes and despises driving. Anyway, until recently, she didn’t want to leave her husband. Not as long as there was anything left of his memory and he still knew who she was. He’s had Alzheimer’s, diagnosed three years ago, and, poor thing, she finally had to put him in a nursing home that deals with memory problems. He forgets more every month. My sister is having a hard time of it. It’s broken her heart. They’d been married longer than Ryan and I, fifty-one years, and she says she cries herself to sleep every night because she misses him so much. The house
is empty without him.

  “She drags herself to his bedside at the nursing home every day. Every day. It’s an hour trip each way and, as I said, my sister hates to drive, especially in bad weather. Her eyes aren’t so good anymore. Jasper always did the driving. I feel so badly for her. For both of them. Jasper was one of those people who was so full of life. Smart. Fearless. Like us, they’d rarely been apart for most of their long, and happy, marriage.

  “So her predicament has opened my eyes. She has to live without him now, or as good as, because these days he barely remembers her. At least I still have Ryan by my side. Neither one of us are sick or in a nursing home. Yet, anyway.”

  Another sigh. “So what’s three weeks? I guess it isn’t all that long in the scheme of things. Twenty-one days. All in all, that’s not much, in a lifetime.”

  “No, not much. It will go fast, you’ll see.”

  “I guess I’m worried because of where he’s going. Exploring Africa isn’t like parasailing off an Illinois bluff cliff, or trying out a dude cattle ranch in Wyoming. Africa can be dangerous in so many ways, besides the wild animals. People disappear in the dark continent and are never heard from again.” She leaned her face into her hands in a gesture of resignation and spoke from between her fingers. “But it’s settled. He’s going. His flight is at ten tomorrow morning.”

  Abigail spoke softly, reaching over to lay her hand on Claudia’s shoulder as reassurance. “He’ll be fine. Nothing is going to happen to him. Those safaris are perfectly safe. The companies organizing the excursions, and the guides leading them, know what they’re doing. Believe me.” Abigail was sure what Claudia was really troubled over was that her husband would get hurt somehow on his great adventure and, if something happened, not come home again. Maybe even die. She was afraid of losing him. Oh, how Abigail understood that feeling. “And three weeks will fly by, you’ll see.”

  “Will it?”

  “Sure. The bookstore will keep you busy during the days and your friends will keep you busy, as much as you want us to, in the evenings. You can drop by our house anytime you feel lonely. Tell you what, why don’t you drop by for dinner Friday night? That’s two days after Ryan leaves for Africa. You might like some company by then. I’ll invite Myrtle, Kyle and Glinda over. We’ll have a BBQ and play cards afterwards. Do you like five-hundred rummy?”

  Claudia cocked her head to one side and gave her a weak smile. “You know I do.”

  “Good. We’ll have fun. We won’t give you a chance to miss that old gallivanting husband of yours.” Abigail’s return smile was meant to cheer her friend up. She wasn’t sure it was working.

  “Thanks Abigail. I appreciate your invitation and, yes, I’ll take you up on your kind offer. Friday night for sure. Dinner and cards, how can I resist? I will be there.”

  “Good. Six o’clock or as soon as you close the shop here and make it to the cabin.”

  “Should I bring anything?”

  “No,” Abigail answered. “Just yourself.”

  “You know, I haven’t asked about you yet. What are you up to these days? Got any new commissions or working on any murals lately?”

  Abigail saw the opportunity to ask what she’d come to ask about in the first place and dove in. “No murals, but I am working on a series of eerie paintings of this old house rumored to be...haunted.”

  “What house are you talking about?”

  “707 Suncrest. It’s down a neglected gravel road on the fringe of town, very isolated; and the house is falling apart. Myrtle and I took a shortcut during that tornado storm and drove right by it. I never knew it was there. Of course, I didn’t even know that road was there. You can hardly see it, it’s so camouflaged with weeds and woods. Granted, the house is a crumbling wreck, but, oh, the paintings it will make. Atmospheric and spooky. I want to recreate the place in different kinds of weather. I was out there today, before I came here, sketching it. I know–” Abigail didn’t get to finish before she got Claudia’s surprising reaction.

  “Oh oh. You’re really doing paintings of that house, huh?” Leaning forward in her chair Claudia stared at Abigail. There was an odd look on her face. Apprehension, perhaps? “You’d do better to stay far away from that place. It’s not a house you want to have anything to do with.”

  “So you know something about the house, huh?”

  “Some of it. As a young woman I was living in Spookie at the time. I remember some of what happened there, but not everything. I’m not sure if anyone knows everything. It was a huge scandal.”

  “What do you know?”

  “What happened there was a human tragedy. Heinous.” Claudia was shaking her head. “In the nineteen sixties and seventies the house was lived in by the Theiss family. There were five of them. Mother, father, and three children, two girls and a boy. I don’t remember any of their names. In nineteen seventy-nine–I think it was nineteen seventy-nine–from what I can recall, I think the son went insane one night and killed his whole family.”

  Abigail hadn’t been prepared for that. “The son murdered his parents and sisters? How? Why?”

  “Shot them all. One bullet to each of their heads. Don’t know why. Or, at least, I don’t know.”

  “So...it’s a house of, not just one, but of mass murder? Four people died there?”

  “It is. And it’s been abandoned ever since. Who wants to live in such a house? Not me. Apparently, no one else, either.”

  Abigail was stunned. “What happened to him. The son? Did he commit suicide; shoot himself, too? That happens sometimes.” Abigail experienced a sadness for the ones who had come before and were no longer with them. Their lives cut way too short with violence from a person they had most likely loved. She had to shake off the instant melancholy the revelation had created in her. It reminded her too much of the murder of the mother and her two children who had once lived in her original house in Spookie; the first mystery she and Frank had solved years ago.

  “They said he tried to kill himself, but failed. The bullet to his head didn’t do the job. He recovered, went to trial, was convicted of the murders and he’s been in prison ever since.”

  “He’s been in prison since nineteen-seventy nine. Forty years? He’s still alive?”

  “Yep, forty years. I believe he got life. He was only around seventeen when he murdered his family so I imagine he’s probably, maybe, might still be alive. I really don’t know. It was such a long time ago. I do recollect he had steadfastly claimed he was innocent and that some mystery stalker had perpetrated the killings. Not him. But since the bullet he took conveniently didn’t kill him, like the rest of his family, everyone believed he was the killer, and just shot himself to make it look good. It didn’t fool anyone.”

  “Seventeen, he was only seventeen?” Learning he’d been the same age as her Nick was now, somehow depressed her. A seventeen-year-old boy was, in many ways, yet a child. They’d convicted and put a child in prison for life for something they believed he’d done. There’d been no witnesses...left alive. All of it had been a tragedy. “The police didn’t believe him, huh?”

  “Neither did the jury. He was accused and found guilty for murdering his family.”

  No wonder the house on Sunset Road had such an air of gloom to it. Four human beings had perished there and a young boy’s life had been ruined forever.

  Then the bodiless words she thought she’d heard at the Suncrest house returned to her. Don’t go. She shook the uncomfortable feeling away the memory gave her. Perhaps, she hadn’t heard what she thought she had heard. That’s what she kept telling herself.

  The bell above the shop door tinkled. Someone had come in. An elderly woman’s voice called out: “Claudia, are you here? Claudia? I brought some of my old paperbacks and I have a list of the books I want to buy.”

  Both of them were done with their cake and coffee, so Claudia stood up. She waved at the new arrival at the other side of the shop. “Hello, Diana. I’ll be right with you.”

  “Okey-dok
ey. I’ll just browse until you do,” the woman, in slacks and a sleeveless blouse, responded in a loud enough voice so Claudia could hear her. She had a small dog, a brown and white Chihuahua, cuddled in her arms, and a canvas bag, of what Abigail was sure contained books, hanging from her shoulder. The dog kept barking and the woman, laughing, kept shushing it, as she moved between the stacks of books, her eyes skimming the available assortment.

  Abigail had thought of one last thing. “You don’t recall anything else about the Theiss house and the murders that happened there?” she asked Claudia, knowing she was losing her friend’s attention. The woman had books to sell.

  Claudia hesitated, as if she were mulling over the question, then said, “Not at the moment. If I do remember anything else, I’ll call you. But you could probably go to the newspaper or look online for more about the family, the murders and that house’s history. It was, in its time, the crime of the decade. Anyway, we can talk more about it, if I recall anything else, on Friday.”

  “I know,” Abigail had also come to her feet, “you have a customer. I’m leaving now. See you on Friday.”

  As they moved through the bookstore Claudia swung around to her and, almost as an afterthought, tacked on, “You know, there are two other persons you could ask about the Theiss family, if you’re really looking for answers. Samantha might be able to dredge something up in the newspaper’s archives that might give you more details on that house and the crimes perpetrated in it.