The Midnight Tour

“No windows.”

“I knocked on the door.”

“You knocked?

“Oh, yeah. I thought maybe I’d introduce myself to Agnes. I brought her a bouquet of flowers.”

“That was nice.”

“Well, you know. All women are supposed to love flowers. Agnes Kutch is apparently nuts, but she’s still a woman. Thought I’d try to win her over and maybe she’d give me a tour of her house. But she wouldn’t open the door. She doesn’t open it for anyone.”

“I’ve heard she’s sort of a recluse.”

“Sort of. It’s like she’s hiding in there. She has a remote system for opening the gate of her driveway. Whatever she needs, she orders it by phone and has it delivered. See how the porch is all enclosed? They leave the stuff inside and she gets it after they’ve gone.”

Warren turned away. Dana stayed with him. Together, they walked along the sandy patch between Front Street and the fence. “She can’t stay in the house all the time, can she?”

“Looks like she does.”

“She must pay her bills somehow.”

“Janice pays them. Everything is billed to Janice.”

“So, does Janice ever see her?”

Warren shook his head. “Not in the past four or five years. Nodody has.”

“How creepy.”

“Well, you can’t really expect someone like Agnes to be normal. When you think about what she’s been through.”

“You’re probably right about that,” Dana said.

“Amazing she survived,” Warren said. “Here. Up this way.”

They headed to the left up a narrow lane of asphalt. The road was cracked and pitted. Grass and dandelions grew in some of the fissures.

“Going nuts was probably her way of coping with it,” Dana said.

“I guess you either go nuts or kill yourself.”

As they walked along, Dana looked over at the Kutch house.

She imagined a withered, hunched old crone lurching through its blue-lit rooms. “What kind of life could she have in there? What does she do all day?”

“God knows,” Warren said.

“Glad Idon’t.”

“An advantage of not being God.”

“I wonder if she’s got a T.V.”

“Last time Janice was inside, she didn’t.”

“And all the lights are blue?”

“I thought...”

“They were blue. Back when everything happened. But Agnes switched over to red lights a year or so later.”

“I hadn’t heard about that. Do you think she was trying to cheer the place up?”

Laughing softly, Warren shook his head. “If that was the idea, I guess it didn’t work. Janice said it was like looking at the world through blood-colored glasses.”

“You’d think she would’ve appreciated the change.”

“Janice? You’d think so, but she didn’t.”

“I can’t even imagine her going into the Kutch house. After what happened to her in there?”

Warren met Dana’s eyes, then quickly looked away and said, “Neither can I”

For a while, they walked up the lane in silence. Dana heard the squeals of seagulls. The wind hissed through the nearby trees.

It seemed to be blowing much stronger as they neared the ocean. It flung Dana’s hair. It pricked her legs with flying sand. It flapped her T-shirt, sometimes pressed the thin fabric against her body, other times blew underneath it and billowed it out. Once, the wind flung her T-shirt up as if to show Warren her bra. While the shirt was up, sharp bits of sand blasted against Dana’s belly. She pulled her T-shirt down, then switched the purse strap to her other shoulder so it crossed her chest like a bandolier. The wind was no match for the leather strap.

“Would you like to go to the beach for a while?” Warren asked. “Or straight to my cabin?”

“How about your cabin?”

“Good idea. Awfully windy today.”

“I noticed.”

When they came to a long row of rural mailboxes, Warren opened one and pulled out a handful of envelopes and catalogs.

He shut it, then nodded to the right at a side road. Narrow and unpaved, the lane stretched off into a shadowy, wooded area. “This way,” he said.

The trees kept most of the wind out. Dana could feel the heat again. The road, dim with shadows, was littered with bright dabs of sunlight. Pine needles crunched softly under her shoes. The air smelled of Christmas trees.

“I like it in here,” she said.

“It’s not L.A., is it?”

“Makes me wonder why I live there.”

“Why do you?”

“I don’t know. I grew up in L.A. My parents live there. Most of my friends, too. I’ve thought about moving away, but...there’s so much I’d miss. Earthquakes, riots, fires, floods, the late-night crackle of gunfire.”

Warren laughed.

“I really do like the restaurants and movie theaters. And the beach.”

“I hear you’re a life guard.”

“I’ve been a life guard.”

“Just like Bay Watch, huh?”

Grinning, she said, “Oh, yeah. It’s me and Mitch. Actually, my life guarding has mostly been confined to swimming pools.”

“You didn’t feel like doing it this summer?”

“I liked the idea of coming up here. And I hadn’t seen Lynn in a while.”

“Well, she has a pool. You can life guard her.”

“Right! She needs it.”

She really might need it, Dana suddenly thought. She’ll probably go out there tonight with or without me, no matter who might be lurking around.

What if something happens to her?

“You really do need to keep an eye on her,” Warren said. “She’s...maybe a little too daring for her own good.”

“Oh, yeah, I know. More guts than sense.”

“Here’s my place.” He nodded toward a log cabin off to the left. It had a screened-in porch along the entire front, and a large stone chimney at one end. Sunlight coming down through the trees dappled the cabin and yard with gold. The yard was forest floor: pine needles and cones, twigs, rocks, saplings and scattered trees.

“It’s like a vacation cottage,” Dana said.

“If you’re having a really cheap vacation.”

“I think it’s nice,” Dana said, following Warren toward the porch.

“I like it. But wait till you meet my neighbors. The Seven Dwarfs live over that way.” He nodded to the right. “And over there...” He pointed at a bleak-looking cabin some distance to the left. “That’s where my buddy Ed lives. Ed Gein.”