The Ghost Hunter's Daughter

by Caroline Flarity

  Pickens stepped back, and before Anna or Freddy could stop her, Doreen walked into the house, giving them no choice but to follow. Framed pictures of a Boy Scout troops hung on the dark wood paneling covering the walls. Pickens led them into a large, stark kitchen. The tiled floor was pockmarked with dents, and dumbbells of varying sizes were stacked in the corners.

  Pickens pulled out three chairs from the kitchen table. “Plant those buns of yours,” he said, and then slurped water directly from the kitchen tap. Doreen and Freddy sat. Anna remained standing. She wanted out of there.

  Pickens opened his fridge, taking out four beer bottles and placing one down in front of each of them.

  “Our secret,” Pickens said, pulling another chair out and sitting down in his micro shorts. He cracked open his beer and chugged it in loud, wild-eyed gulps, and then picked up a dumbbell and launched into a set of arm curls. They watched in mortified silence as he counted twelve reps aloud, grunting in between each one.

  “So tell me,” Pickens finally said, “what am I going to do with a little puppy?” His knees were wide, way too wide.

  “Yep, I guess it’s kids that really go nuts for them,” Freddy said, then blushed furiously and stood up. “Sorry to have wasted—”

  Pickens cut him off, perking up. “They do, huh?”

  Freddy picked up the puppy basket from the floor. The puppies jumped over each other, playfully snapping at his fingers.

  “C’mon Dor,” he said. “We gotta go.”

  “You two girlfriend and boyfriend?” Pickens asked Doreen.

  Freddy’s eyes narrowed. Doreen giggled and shook her head, cheeks blazing.

  “What about you two?” Pickens swung his finger between Freddy and Anna.

  “Dor, get up,” Anna said. Why the hell was she still sitting there? Doreen took a gulp of beer before rising out of her seat. Pickens put his free hand on Doreen’s arm, coaxing her back down. Anna’s heart raced. She didn’t breathe again until his took his hand off of Doreen.

  “C’mon, you can tell me,” Pickens said to Doreen. “Kids tell me all kinds of stuff. I don’t snitch.” He dropped the dumbbell, which clanked loudly on the tile floor, then winced and rubbed his temples. “That one really rattled the old noggin!”

  Something inside Anna squirmed. Pickens had a headache, too. He looked up and grinned, but there was something violent in it.

  “Come on, Dor,” Freddy said.

  Doreen had the insane nerve to take two more gulps of beer while Anna and Freddy shot death glares at her.

  “One for the road,” Doreen said, and burped.

  “You guys do stuff, though, you know,” Pickens said, his eyes wandering over all three of them. He made the quote sign with his fingers. “Friends with bennies?”

  They laughed politely in the reflexive, hollow way they did when authority figures tried to be cute. Pickens laughed, too, a chuckling that went on and on in the otherwise silent kitchen until he stopped to suck in air.

  “We have to get going,” Freddy said. “Our families are expecting us for dinner.”

  Pickens’s eyes narrowed. “You know, I might want one of those pups after all. Why don’t you stick around? We can chillax, watch a movie”—he stood and whispered in Anna's ear—“smoke a doobie?”

  “No, thanks,” Anna said, her stomach rolling from the sour smell of Pickens’s body odor. Her eyes met Freddy’s and an agreement passed between them. They were done being polite. Freddy grabbed Doreen’s arm, yanked her up, and pulled her toward the front door. Anna was right behind them with the puppies, but Pickens rushed by her, seemingly racing them to the door. Freddy quickly yanked it open, shoved Doreen out and then held the door open for Anna.

  “Come on back anytime,” Pickens called after them, his voice strained. The three of them half-ran down the driveway.

  Safely inside Major Tom, they drove away in stunned silence.

  Eventually, Doreen said, “Gross, did you see his—”

  “Let’s not discuss it,” Anna said, turning around to face Doreen in the backseat. “What were you thinking, drinking his beer?”

  Doreen shrugged and looked out the window. Freddy and Anna gave each other the side eye. Something was definitely up with Dor, and when they were done with this puppy business Anna would drag whatever it was out of her. The puppies were restless in Anna’s lap, and she reached in the basket to comfort them. Wet noses nuzzled her hand and tiny warm tongues lapped at her knuckles. But Anna felt only the cold grip of grief. They probably missed their mother.

  They drove on in silence until Freddy slowed down in front of an Old Bloomtown colonial with a small pink bike on the front porch.

  “Boom,” Freddy said, parking Major Tom.

  The mailbox was stenciled in primary colors: “The Catilanos.” Freddy knocked while Anna stood next to him on the front porch, holding the puppy basket. Doreen lingered behind them, burping. Mrs. Catilano answered the door, thin and stark-faced with big bleached Jersey hair. There was a curly-haired girl clinging to her hip and sucking on a pacifier, which was odd because the girl looked about eight years old.

  “Yeah?” Mrs. Catilano said.

  “We have free puppies if you’re interested,” Freddy said.

  “What do you know,” Mrs. Catilano said. “The cat just died.”

  Anna lowered the basket so the girl could see the puppies. The pacifier swung around wildly in the girl’s mouth like she was really gnawing on it.

  A male voice boomed down from the second floor. “Who is it!”

  Mrs. Catilano shouted up the stairs. “Shut your gaping piehole!” She turned back to Freddy. “The last thing I need around here is another freeloader.”

  “Squeeze puppy!” the little girl shrieked, and a puppy squealed in pain.

  Anna jerked the basket up and away from the girl, who launched into a tantrum.

  “No! Want puppy! Squeeze puppy!” the girl screamed, her hands clenching and unclenching. Anna lifted the basket out of the kid’s reach and the brat punched her in the ribs, hard. Maintaining her frozen smile, Anna backed away and bumped into Dor. Together they shuffled backward onto the front step.

  “Why don't you think about it?” Freddy said, following suit.

  The male voice bellowed down the stairs, “If the kid wants a puppy, give her a goddamn puppy!”

  “You gonna clean up the dog crap?” Mrs. Catilano yelled back. “You gonna scrape up what's left of the thing when she's done with it? Mr. Big Hero, right? Always making me the bad guy!”

  After Mrs. Catilano slammed the door, Anna, Dor and Freddy walked quickly past a peeling birch tree in the Catilanos' lawn. At the base of the tree, partially obscured by grass, a Popsicle-stick cross marked a tiny fresh grave. Anna shuddered and glanced back toward the house. The youngest Catilano watched them go from the living room window, wringing her hands and chewing hungrily on the pacifier. After reaching Major Tom, they huddled on the street in the night shadow of a giant pine. Freddy opened his mouth to say something, and a muffled scream came from a nearby house, making all of them jump and sending a splinter of pain through Anna’s skull.

  “Something is wrong with this town,” Freddy said.

  “You want to talk about wrong?” Doreen swayed slightly on her feet. “You should see what’s going down at my house!”

  Anna winced. “Dor, can you use your inside voice?”

  “But…we’re outside.”

  “Good point.”

  Anna rubbed her temples. The damn headache again. What Freddy said was true—something was wrong in Bloomtown. She thought about cosmic rays slicing through her head like it wasn’t even there.

  “Do you think this has something to do with the solar storms?”

  Freddy frowned. “The radiation can mess with satellites. But with people? I mean, if it did, it would be headline news.”

  Could it be a coincidence, the solar storms and the creep factor in Bloomtown rising simultaneously? Anna wasn’t so sure.

 
; “Not if they hadn’t discovered it yet,” Anna said, “or…if they were trying to cover it up.”

  Freddy smirked. “Anna Fagan, a budding conspiracy theorist. Who’d of thunk it?”

  “You guys,” Dor said quietly. “Not that you care, but I have to go home.”

  A deep growl came from behind Anna.

  “Watch it!” Freddy shouted, knocking into Dor as he yanked Anna away from the jaws of a bullmastiff, pulling her against his chest. The dog had charged out of the dark yard next to the Catilanos’ house, its sharp teeth missing her arm by inches. Thankfully, the muscled bullmastiff was held back by a heavy chain attached to something in the darkness. If that chain had been just a few inches longer. Anna’s mouth went dry. She cold almost feel the dog’s teeth rip through her skin, cracking bone. The dog struggled against its metal collar, drool dripping off its muzzle as it retched out strangled growls.

  Shaking, Anna opened the back door of Major Tom.

  “Dor, get in before that thing breaks loose.” But Doreen was gone.

  • • •

  Anna ran through the backyards of Old Bloomtown, enduring the punishing ache in her skull as she chased after Doreen. It was the beer, Pickens’s stupid beer. Why else would Dor run off like that? But then she remembered the hurt on Dor’s face when Freddy had elbowed her aside, instinctively reaching for Anna. Whatever the reason, Dor was buzzed and acting like a loon, and there was no way Anna could let her go home like that. Up ahead were the sounds of twigs snapping and the soft crunch of pine needles being pushed into sand and gravel, but Dor was far enough ahead to remain out of sight. Anna didn’t call out to her, hoping the run would sober Dor up. Besides, she knew where Dor was headed—they’d worn paths through these yards years ago, pool-hopping on hot summer nights—and she almost enjoyed the old, familiar rush of wind whipping through her hair.

  But soon her lungs burned and acid rose from her chest, bringing a sour taste to Anna’s mouth. Doreen, more than most, knew what Pickens was capable of. Why didn’t she refuse his beer? Doreen was like one of the puppies, eager and cloying, never getting enough love and attention from her and Freddy—it was exhausting sometimes—but from Pickens, too? From Pickens?

  Anna’s side cramped and she stopped and leaned against an oak tree, breathing heavily and gripped with a sudden fury at Doreen. Anna was the one who’d lost Penelope. Doreen was supposed to be helping her, not running off like a toddler. Anna spit on the ground and struck the tree in frustration. When her hand hit the bark, an image of Izzy’s smug face popped into her head. She was mad at the wrong person. This was all Izzy’s fault. He was the one that killed Peeps. Anna would make him pay, and she was pretty sure she knew just how to do it.

  For a moment she thought about cutting left and crossing the back road to the parking lot of the Yo! Yogurt shop. Anna could get a chocolate cup, load up on sides and let Doreen fall on her own beer-covered sword. But instead she turned right and ran through another dark yard, toward the last Old Bloomtown house on Eden Street, in the shadow now of grand McMansions, but still a dead-end.

  Dor was standing at her mailbox sorting through a stack of junk mail, the underarms of her T-shirt soaked with sweat.

  “That dog was messed up, huh?” Anna said gently, approaching her. “I don’t blame you for taking off, but you should chill for a few minutes before going inside. You smell like a brewery, and the last thing you need is to get on Cindy’s shit list.”

  It was a joke. In fifth grade, Doreen’s mom, Cindy, had announced that Dor was on her “shit list” for leaving her wet Uggs on a leather recliner. This struck Anna and Dor as hilarious, and they hadn’t stopped laughing about it since. But tonight Dor looked at Anna with no trace of a smile. In her hand was a white envelope adorned with a stamp and a glaring blankness where the return address should be. Anna knew what lay inside. It was a check signed by Anthony Caputo, Doreen’s so-called father.

  “She’s making me bring it to her now. It’s so humiliating,” Doreen whispered. “She had that back surgery a few weeks ago, remember? She’s supposed to be in physical therapy, but just lies on the couch all day and night watching TV.”

  Anna nodded. She vaguely recalled Dor telling her something about Cindy needing surgery, but it didn’t really register at the time.

  “She never gets off the couch now. I don’t even know if she can.”

  Never? Anna let that sink in, unsure what to say. It wasn’t like she could tell Dor to turn to her father for help. She and Dor had always bonded over both having only one parent, but Doreen had never known her father. Well, that wasn’t quite true. Doreen did have one brief, but vivid, childhood memory of him—one that she’d repeated to Anna many times over the years. Doreen was three years old and in the living room. Her mother, Cindy, was wearing gloppy red lipstick and a strong perfume that made Dor nauseous. Cindy had pushed her toward a strange man with cold hands and hairy arms, and Dor cried and squirmed until he let her go. That was it, Dor’s only recollection of dear old dad.

  When Doreen was seven and old enough to ask questions, her mom told her that her father was a missionary in Cambodia and that his heroic passion to help the disadvantaged kept him away from both of them. But when Dor got old enough to pick up on the raised eyebrows and pointed silences from relatives whenever she mentioned her father’s noble calling, she knew it was a lie. On her thirteenth birthday, Doreen’s mom finally told her the truth. When Doreen was conceived her father was a married man with his own family. Cindy sat her down and opened a white envelope with no return address. Inside was a check for four figures made out to Cindy. It was signed by one Anthony Caputo of 233 Garden Drive in North Portersville, NJ. Doreen was the mistake he paid for every month.

  That same night Doreen went to Anna’s and told her everything. But how could they believe Cindy? She’d lied about so much for so long. The two girls decided to track down Doreen’s dad and see for themselves. They took two buses and then walked for an hour around North Portersville until they found 233 Garden Drive. There was a basketball hoop in the driveway and an SUV with a “Proud Father of an Honor Student” bumper sticker. They snuck around to the backyard of the white, blue-trimmed colonial, finding camouflage among the moon shadows. Through a sparsely curtained window, they saw Anthony Caputo watching television with two gangly teenage boys. Doreen had elbowed Anna: “Look at his hairy arms.” Before Anna could respond, Doreen picked up a rock and hurled it at the window. They ran away, the shattering of glass so loud in the quiet night.

  Doreen made Anna pinky swear to never tell anybody about that night, and Anna had kept the promise.

  “Do you have any gum?” Anna asked.

  Dor rummaged through her bag and pulled out a crinkled bag of Skittles, offering them to Anna.

  “Not for me,” Anna said. “For your breath.”

  Doreen shoved a handful of Skittles in her mouth and chewed dutifully. She let out one last burp, which had them both bent over with their hands over their mouths, stifling laughter. It felt good.

  “Okay,” Anna said, collecting herself and assessing Doreen. “You good to go in?”

  Dor nodded. “Will you come with me?”

  “Sure.”

  “Tell me something first.”

  “Anything.”

  The sadness crept back in to Dor’s eyes. “What’s going on with you and Freddy?”

  Dor did have a crush on Freddy. Of course. That’s why she ran off like that. Anna could still feel the lean-muscled warmth of Freddy’s chest radiating in her own, but she wasn’t about to tell Dor that. She thought about icebergs and cold ocean swims.

  “Nothing! Why?”

  “I just…” Dor dropped her head. “I don’t want anything to change between us. It’s been kinda weird lately.”

  “It won’t!” Anna was talking too loud.

  “Shhh. Okay fine. C’mon.”

  Anna followed Dor up the pathway and through the front door. Inside, garbled static and flickering shadows emanat
ed from the television in the otherwise dark living room. Anna made out the form of Dor’s mom sleeping on the couch. One of Cindy’s arms had fallen off the side, and the tips of her fingers were grazing the floor. They tried to creep toward the stairs, but a betraying floorboard creaked underfoot.

  “Did the check come?” Cindy asked from the dark living room.

  Doreen stepped into the living room and Anna followed. There was a horrid stench. Cindy struggled to raise her head from the pillow on the brown leather couch, her bloated face scrunching from the effort. Her hair hung off her head in greasy strips.

  “Yes,” Doreen said, reaching for a pill bottle on the mantel above the fireplace. She placed two pills next to the cup of water on the coffee table.

  “Leave them here,” Cindy said, eyeing the pill bottle in Doreen’s hand.

  Doreen ignored her, returning the bottle to the mantel.

  Cindy scowled. “The TV’s busted.”

  “It’s the satellites,” Dor said. “They’re wacky because of the solar flares.”

  “The ‘solar flares,’ huh. Think you're pretty smart, don’tcha, Miss Fancy Pants?” Cindy looked over at Anna. “You’re such a good little helper to your dad. But my daughter”—she glared at Doreen, practically snarling—“is pretty much useless.”

  Anna held her breath and her tongue—she’d never heard Cindy talk to Dor like that. Embarrassed, Dor glanced at Anna, a clump of her dark blonde hair stuck to her face with sweat.

  “Did you call Dr. Williams like you said you would?” Doreen asked, steeling herself.

  Cindy ignored her, crossing her arms over her chest like a defiant child.

  “You have to eat something,” Doreen continued.

  “Did you not hear me? Fix. The. TV!”

  Doreen opened her mouth as if to say something, but instead turned and thundered up the stairs. Anna followed, finding Dor on her bed, her face burrowed in her pillow.

  “What can I do?” Anna said.

  Dor picked her head up, her face a patchwork of blotches. “That’s how she talks to me before the pain pills kick in. In half an hour, she’ll get all dumb and smiley like nothing happened.” She reburied her face in the pillow. “I’ll call you later,” she said, her voice muffled. “You better leave now before it gets worse.”