windows on the second floor, shuttered. Two on the first floor, with
one of the shutters torn or blown away and an empty pane where the
glass should be. Off to the left, an outhouse. A newer wood there it
looked like pine to me. I thought how foul Ben and Mary's must have
been, and I guessed the old doctor had replaced it. I would have.
Once there had been a barn. But that had burned down some years ago.
I remembered where it was located. The grass grew somewhat longer
there.
There were four steps up to the porch. The wood was old, spongy and
gave underfoot. So did the porch beams.
The doorway was crude. Strictly post and lintel. It was made of heavy
oak, like the door itself. Tacked to the crossbeam of the lintel was a
faded blue ribbon, and dangling from the ribbon, facing dead ahead like
some bizarre knocker, was a fish head mouth agape. The flesh had long
since rotted away leaving only three square inches of clean white bone,
empty eyed and hollow.
Steve flicked it with his finger. 'You put out the welcome mat for us,
Case?'
It rattled lightweight against the oak then was still again. Casey
shook her head.
'Nope. Wish I'd thought of it. But it's kids, I guess.'
'Kids, yeah.'
We stood there a moment, feeling awkward, silly. Well, here we were.
Kids. Casey gave me a grin.
'Who's going to open it?'
I turned the rusted doorknob and gave it a push.
'Locked.'
I looked around. I kept having this feeling that somebody had to be
watching. We were about to break into a house. So somebody had to
know. It was obvious we were going to get caught. I hadn't the luck
for anything better.
'There's a window broken over here. One of us can probably slip
through and unlock it from the inside.'
I looked at Steven.
'Not me.' He gestured toward the linen pants. 'Whites.'
So that was the reason for the beach-party outfit. I took his
flashlight from him and walked over to the window. I flicked on the
light. I had plenty of room to get through. The window was at chest
level. I could hop in easily. But damned if I wanted to.
There was one big spike of glass pointing upward from the bottom pane.
I lifted it out of the window and tossed it into the tall grass. There
was no sound of breakage.
I turned the beam on the floor inside. There was a lot of broken
glass there, but nothing that would get in the way of my climbing in. I
swept the bottom pane with the base of the flashlight just to be sure
there were no small pieces of glass to grab me. Then I handed it
back
I turned with my back to the window and reached inside and found the
upper line of molding with my fingertips. I brought my head, shoulders
and chest inside, and was immediately aware of the cool, moldy smell of
the place. Then I pulled myself up and swung my ass and legs into the
room. I set myself down in a crunch of broken glass. Steve handed me
the flashlight.
Once I was in there the adrenaline really started pumping. That was
it. Break-in. From now on they could arrest you.
Chit
OMIT..
The first thing I did was sweep the room with the flashlight. A brief
impression of empty space, an old wooden table and a potbellied stove
left behind. I was in the kitchen. It had been a big kitchen. You
could see the rust stains on the linoleum floor where the refrigerator
had been. There was wallpaper with a fruit-and-berry motif. There
were dirty white tiles over the kitchen sink. I thought that at least
the moldings over the doors and windows had been scraped and varnished,
not painted. The same with the cabinets. Somebody had cared a
little.
A two-year-old gas-station calendar hung from a nail on the wall beside
me. The month was December. There was a picture of a pair of terrier
pups peering over the edge of a Christmas stocking, liquid eyed and
plaintive. Directly down the wall from that, over the baseboard, was
an empty telephone jack. On the floor lay a small broken end table,
over on its side.
I went to the door.
It was double-locked, a Segal lock and a bolt type. I turned the one
and threw the other. Casey led them in and I closed the door behind
them.
'Lights on,' she said, and her beam and Kim's joined mine.
Directly in front of us was the stairwell leading to the second floor,
right off the kitchen. The planking looked solid enough. The
banisters seemed to have been replaced recently.
I was beginning to realize that I hardly recognized the place. For
one thing, I didn't remember any stairwell at all. Maybe there had
been too much going on that day. And I'd been pretty young. Maybe the
place had done some shape-shifting in my memory since then.
I realized it must have been the kitchen where they'd found the
bodies.
Inside, though, the house lost a lot of its ominous quality. Except
for Casey, I think we all were glad of that. You couldn't get too
worked up over fruit-and-berry wallpaper.
I walked past the stairwell into the living room. Casey followed me.
Kim and Steven had a look inside the kitchen.
The living room was pretty empty. A single over-stuffed chair and an
old couch with half the stuffing ripped out of them in tiny chunks and
