Eli figured his mom would be okay for another minute or two. In fact, that was all she probably needed to realize he'd just stepped out to blow off some steam. He was coming back. No reason for her to freak out about it.
He rang the caretaker's bell--then listened at his door. Larry's studio apartment was in the basement. Eli heard someone coming up the stairs. He stepped back from the door as it opened.
'Mr. Eli McCloud in Unit Nine,' Larry said. 'What can I do you for?'
About thirty, with a pale complexion, dark eyes, and a crooked little smile, Larry was handsome, but also kind of crazy looking. When they'd first moved in, Larry's black hair had been in a ponytail, but he'd recently cut it all off so he was practically bald. He was friendly enough, but a bit of an oddball. He'd come to the door in a thin, yellowish, tight T-shirt, pale blue shorts, and brown socks with sandals. Thick, black hair covered his pale arms and legs.
'Sorry to bother you,' Eli said. He shot a glance over his shoulder. 'I wanted to ask you a few questions.'
'Didn't I just hear your mother calling out for you?' Larry asked.
'Yeah, she found me,' Eli lied. 'Everything's okay. Um, do you have a few minutes?'
'Sure. My dinner's in the oven, but it won't be ready for a while. C'mon down.'
Eli followed Larry down a short flight of stairs toward his apartment. He hadn't been inside Larry's place before, and had only glimpsed it passing by the basement windows sometimes. It seemed like a really cool place to live. But now, as Eli walked down the steps to a dark corridor, it felt like a dungeon. Whatever Larry was cooking had an overly sweet, spicy, meat odor that filled the studio apartment. It wasn't the kind of smell that was welcome on a hot day. But at least Larry's place was a bit cooler.
'Have you had dinner yet?' Larry asked, leading the way into his combination living room and bedroom. 'I'm cooking rabbit. There's enough for two. It's mighty tasty. I have a whole freezer full. My buddy's a hunter.'
'Oh, gosh, thanks anyway,' Eli managed to say.
For someone who kept the Tudor Court's grounds so neat, Larry was a slob at home. Clothes were strewn over the unmade bed as well as the back of an easy chair that was losing its stuffing. Random pictures Larry had torn from magazines were haphazardly taped to the beige walls: lots of pretty girls (Eli recognized Cameron Diaz in three photos); some race car shots; nature scenes; and quite a few pictures of the Beatles. In the corner, he'd spread some newspapers beneath the cage holding a canary that wouldn't stop chirping. Just enough light came through the small, high windows for Eli to see how dirty and dusty the place was.
'So what did you want to ask me?' Larry said, heading into his kitchen.
Eli stopped in the kitchen doorway. Dirty dishes were stacked in the sink, and a portable TV sat on Larry's battered, old wooden breakfast table. A Princess Di commemorative plate was being sold on the Home Shopping Network. Larry had it on mute.
'Um, I was wondering if you knew anything about the lady and her son who used to live in our place,' Eli said.
Larry stirred some greasy-looking potatoes and cabbage cooking on the stove. 'What lady and son?'
'The ones who died there, back in the seventies,' Eli said.
'Oh, them,' Larry nodded. 'Well, I wasn't here then, sport. Hell, I wasn't even born yet.' He opened the oven and checked on his rabbit.
'Still, I figured you might know something about them though, maybe like how they died or something.'
Larry was silent for a few moments. Eli listened to his canary chirping away in the next room.
'Listen, I'd like to help you out,' Larry said, finally. 'But if the property manager ever got wind I was flapping my mouth off to you about what's gone on in Unit Nine, I'd get shit-canned in no time. Then Anita and I would be out on our tails.'
'Who's Anita?'
'She's my girl,' Larry said.
Eli stepped aside as the pale, hairy caretaker walked back into the messy living room. He opened the birdcage. 'C'mon, Anita, girl. There's my boopie-boopie. That's my nickname for her. Hey, boopie-boopie!' The canary jumped on his finger, and Larry carefully took Anita out of her cage.
'My mom and I already figured out the place is haunted,' Eli said, watching him play with his bird. 'Plus one of the neighbors told us about the lady who killed her son in there and then killed herself. I just thought you might know more. I won't tell anyone you said anything, I swear.'
Larry pursed his lips at the canary and cooed at it. Then he gave Eli a wary look. 'You rat on me, and I'll have Anita peck your eyes out.'
'I wouldn't,' Eli murmured.
'Ha, I'm messing with you,' Larry grinned. He put the bird back in its cage, then fussed with the water and feeder trays. Eli heard some seeds spill onto the newspaper. 'I really don't know that much about it, sport,' Larry said. 'I do know they replaced the tub upstairs in that unit.'
'The tub?' Eli repeated.
Larry nodded. He seemed focused on his chores with the birdcage. 'Yeah, that's where she shot herself after she slit the kid's throat.'
'The mother shot herself in the bathtub?' Eli said, blinking. He thought about all the weird disturbances in their bathroom.
'Yep,' Larry replied. 'They found her in the tub with a bullet in her head and the gun on the bathroom floor. They replaced the tub for the next tenant. Everything else in there is the original fixtures.'
'And the son,' Eli said numbly. 'Where did they find him?'
'In his bed,' the caretaker answered, still tinkering with his canary's cage. The bird wouldn't stop chirping. 'I think she killed him in his sleep, but I'm not sure.'
Eli nervously rubbed his forearms and felt gooseflesh. He was thinking about what the Ouija board had told him. It had said the boy died in his bedroom. It had spelled out
'That's what I hear.'
'Do you know how old the son was?' Eli asked. The Ouija board had said Carl was fourteen.
'A young teenager, I think,' Larry replied with a shrug. 'Probably around your age.'
The sweet, spicy smell of that rabbit cooking started to make Eli sick. 'Um, do you know when this happened?' he asked. 'What year?'
'Some time in the mid-seventies.'
'Did you--did you ever get their names?'
'Nope,' Larry said, wiping his hands on the front of his pale blue shorts. He peeked into the cage. 'Okay, boopie-boopie, all cleaned up,' he cooed to Anita. The bird kept chirping.
'Is there any way to find out their names and when they lived here?' Eli pressed. 'I mean, the management company must have some kind of records, right?'
Larry reached under his yellowish T-shirt and scratched his pale, hairy stomach. 'Nope, sorry, sport.' He shook his head as he walked past Eli and into the kitchen again. 'They tossed out all the old documents when the apartment complex changed ownership back in 1987.' He stirred the potato concoction on the stove, then turned up the heat.
'Do you think any of the neighbors here might know more about them? The kid and his mother, I mean....'
'I doubt it,' Larry said, opening the oven to peek at his rabbit again. 'Most of the people who were living here when it happened in the seventies are long gone now.'
'Do you know if any of them still live in the neighborhood?' Eli asked.
Larry shut the oven door, leaned over the stove, and scratched his chin. 'Shit, what was that old lady's name?' he muttered--almost to himself. 'Vera something, she moved away two years ago. Wait a sec, I know...'
Larry brushed by him as he moved back into the living room. He opened up the middle drawer of an old rolltop desk. 'She sent me a Christmas card last year. It's in here somewhere. Good thing I don't throw anything away. Vera something, she was still pretty much on the ball for an old lady, only her legs were giving out. So she moved into this rest home. Sucks to get old. Here it is...' He pulled out an envelope. 'Cormier, Vera Cormier,' he said,
