House of Skin

by Jonathan Janz

  He moved away from Maria, thought he’d escaped her when she gripped his arm. Then she was jabbering away at him and he realized she was drunk. Despite the band playing next to them atop the ballroom stage, her shrill, slurry voice bit through the noise and turned heads.

  “Why can’t you respect your brother? Why can’t you leave her alone?”

  Jesus. Airing their dirty laundry out here in front of everyone.

  “Look at me, Myles.” Both hands on his lapels now. “She doesn’t want you. If she did she wouldn’t have married David.” Maria threw a sidelong glance at the men and women gawking at them. “That’s right, I said she doesn’t want you.” Getting into it now that she had an audience. “So why don’t you leave like your little brother. Robert knew she’d never have him so he left for Memphis. Why don’t you run away too?”

  She needed a good smack in the mouth. Painted little whore with a little boy at home watched by his grandma tonight because his mother would rather have a man between her legs than a son on her lap.

  He thought of saying all that, thought of saying what everybody already knew about her, but he didn’t. Instead, he said, “You’ve no room to talk,” and walked away.

  As he shut the French doors behind him he heard her say, “You’re a coward.” But she said nothing more because she was afraid of Annabel. Little Maria with her big mouth shut up quick whenever Annabel was around. Lovely Annabel.

  Myles stood watching her.

  He knew if he didn’t say something soon he’d lose his nerve, so standing beside her he said, “Smoke?”

  Elbows on the cement wall bordering the veranda, she stared quietly at the forest, making no sign she’d heard him or was even aware of his presence.

  Playing it cool, Myles tapped one out for himself, lit it. He leaned there beside her showing her he was comfortable with the silence too. He stole glances at her, though, because he couldn’t help it. Thin, sculptured nose below large blue eyes with lashes so long she needn’t cake them with that black shit Maria smeared on hers. Annabel had her blond hair pulled back tonight. Myles realized his hands were shaking. He had to say something.

  “Where’s David?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” she said. As it usually was, her delivery was toneless, maddening.

  “It’d be nice if he came to his own party.” When she said nothing, he added, “And paid some attention to his wife.”

  Had there been the slightest hint of a smile? Without looking at him she said, “He does.”

  “I don’t mean in the bedroom, I mean when there are fifty people at his house drinking his liquor and having sex in his rooms.”

  “They’re your rooms, too, Myles.”

  “And I’m here, aren’t I.”

  Annabel turned and moved toward the veranda steps.

  “That’s it?” he said and despised the plaintive note in his voice.

  She descended the steps into the lawn, and for the first time he noticed she was barefoot.

  He was about to shout at her, tell her that David didn’t deserve her, that he was probably off in the woods with another woman, when a cry erupted from within the house.

  It wasn’t a normal cry, like a man who’d been cuckolded or a woman who’d been groped. It was a cry of anguish, of heartbroken doom, and as he pushed through the crowd gathered near the bandstand he realized it was Maria’s wail he was hearing. It rose up to the chandeliers, knifed through his eardrums, and he spotted Maria’s mother then, old and haggard and covered with blood. He thought at first she’d been stabbed, but then the crowd opened up and he saw Maria kneeling there in a lake of blood, her little boy clutched to her blood-shiny chest, her dead little boy whose throat was slashed so deeply it hung open like the mouth of some toothless animal.

  Myles turned to look for his brother, for David, who would know what to do in a situation like this. But David wasn’t around. Everywhere he looked were shocked faces, weeping men and women who were too stunned to move. Myles turned, not wanting to face the grotesque spectacle any longer but unable to block out the sound of Maria’s wailing, and as he did he beheld a solitary figure standing in the open French doors, leaning there in a shimmering white dress.

  It was Annabel, and she was smiling.

  Chapter Five

  Sam Barlow was in the middle of a nightmare when the phone rang. He sat up, disoriented. He slapped the snooze button on the alarm clock, dropped onto his side, but the ringing persisted and he realized something was wrong.

  He’d run for sheriff expecting to have many dreams interrupted by the ringing of the phone, but the truth was, Patti rarely bothered him at home. Shadeland had its share of domestic disputes and ornery teenagers, but all in all, he knew he had it good.

  “Um-hmm?” he asked.

  “Patti here.”

  “Yeah. I figured as much.” He couldn’t bring himself to be annoyed with his secretary. She bothered him too seldom for that.

  “We’ve got a bit of a situation down here, Sam,” she said, sounding flustered. He found himself waking up fast.

  “What kind of situation?” he asked.

  “A missing person,” she said. Then, quieter, “Well, he’s not technically missing. He’s only been gone for a few hours, but still…”

  “Who is it?” Sam scooted up against his headboard, rubbed crust from his eyes.

  “A lawyer. His name is Ted Brand.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “He’s not local. He came to deliver something to the Carver House.”

  “The Carver House?” Sam slid forward, his bare feet slapping the cold wooden floor.

  “For the new owner.”

  “I didn’t know there was a new owner.” Sam reached over and twisted on the lamp. It was black, and there was a hula girl on it. He’d seen it at a garage sale a few years back and liked it. The half-naked girl watched him, frozen in mid shimmy. Had he married, he never would have been allowed to keep it.

  It was little consolation.

  “…and she really seems distraught, so I figured—”

  “I’m sorry, Patti,” Sam broke in. “I missed part of that.”

  “The lawyer’s wife is here. She’s convinced something bad happened to her husband.”

  “She giving you a hard time?”

  “It’s not that,” Patti said. “She’s very civil.” A pause. “Look, it’s probably better if you come down here yourself, Sam.” Patti’s voice went lower. “It’s probably a matter of the lawyer stepping out on his wife, but I can’t very well tell her that.”

  Barlow smiled, whatever unease that had been building since the phone rang vanishing under the light of Patti’s logic. She ought to have been a cop, he thought. She’d have been better than me.

  “Be right over,” he said.

  “Thanks, Sam. Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it. You’ll just owe me one.”

  “Uh-huh,” she answered, and he could see her grin through the telephone.

  Being on the wrong side of fifty wasn’t much fun, he thought as he plodded through the gloomy bedroom. He splashed cold water on his face, careful not to notice the graying hair at his temples.

  He was still active—he ran three times a week—and once he got moving, the years seemed to fall away. But the recovery periods were longer, and the mornings after a long run were an aching hell.

  Sam refused to be one of those guys who denied their age, though. He simply wasn’t going to let his body fall apart. They could keep their artificial hair dye and their erection pills; he’d manage in those areas just fine. Besides, Patti told him the gray at his temples made him look distinguished, and he figured he might as well believe it. As for his hard-ons, well, they weren’t as frequent as they once were, but the old dog still managed to stand up and bark when he needed it to.

  Ten more minutes and he was pulling into the station. He could see one of his deputies, Tommy McLaughlin, sitting across from Patti.

  On the green vinyl couch
next to Patti’s desk was a woman who looked a little younger than his secretary. Forty, maybe. Not a knockout, but comely enough. Her curly brown hair looked tousled.

  “Hi, Sam,” Patti said.

  Sam nodded. Tommy McLaughlin got up and gestured for Sam to follow. On the way into his office he could feel the lawyer’s wife’s eyes studying him, searching for signs that he would be her salvation.

  He closed the glass door and nodded at Tommy. The young man’s handsome face was careworn, a strained look replacing the cocky good humor Sam had grown accustomed to. Tommy’s blond hair was darkened with sweat and matted to his forehead, reminding Sam of a little boy who’s just awakened from a nasty nightmare. As often happened when he was with Tommy McLaughlin, Sam felt a moment’s regret at never having children, never getting the chance to take a boy fishing or walk a daughter down the aisle.

  “I assume Patti’s filled you in already,” Tommy said.

  “Not really,” Sam said, his mind clearing. “She just said the lawyer—what’s the guy’s name?”

  “Ted Brand.”

  “Patti just said that Brand was missing and his wife was worried over it.”

  Tommy grunted. “Suicidal’s more like it.”

  “How long has Mr. Brand been missing?”

  Tommy glanced through the window at Mrs. Brand. “She said her husband left the office at five o’clock yesterday afternoon.”

  “And he was coming here?” Sam said.

  “He was transferring the ownership papers to the new owner of Carver House.”

  Sam said, “It takes about two hours to get from Indy to here, right?”

  “At the most,” Tommy answered.

  “So even if Brand is alright—which he probably is—we might not have good news for his wife.”

  Tommy nodded, examined his shoes.

  “Why don’t you check the hotels. See if Brand checked in somewhere.”

  Tommy didn’t argue, just nodded again and went out. Sam sat down next to the lawyer’s wife on the green vinyl couch.

  “I’m Sam Barlow,” he said, shaking the woman’s hand. “Patti and Tommy tell me you’re worried about your husband.”

  “Yes,” she said. “This has never happened before.”

  Careful to keep anything insinuating from his voice, Sam asked, “He ever come home late?”

  “He works late sometimes, but that’s normal,” she said. “Lawyers have to do that.”

  “What’s the latest he’s ever been?”

  “Eleven,” she answered. “Eleven-thirty at the latest.”

  Sam checked his watch. Seven-thirty.

  “Does he know anyone in this part of Indiana?”

  She drew back a little. “Why do you want to know that?”

  “I’m just wondering if he might have stopped off somewhere.”

  “Why would he have stopped anywhere?”

  It was the first time the woman’s control slipped, and experience told him three things: Brand’s wife was a nice lady, he treated her like dirt and though she knew deep down that he was cheating on her she’d never heard the possibility verbalized. She was staring at him now above a crumpled Kleenex. Sam felt for her, for the fact that there had to be women like her, as well as men like her husband.

  “No one’s saying he did stop, Mrs. Brand,” he said in a gentler voice. “We’re just talking hypotheticals here.”

  “Hypotheticals.”

  “That’s right.” He reached over and grabbed a box of tissues from the end table. Handing it to her, he asked, “Is there someone back at your house who will call if Mr. Brand comes home while you’re gone?”

  Her eyes held his. “Yes. My mother’s there. With our two sons.”

  “What are your boys’ names?”

  “Majors and Macky,” she answered.

  Sam tried not to cringe.

  “Those are good names, Mrs. Brand.” He leaned forward. “And the best thing for you right now is to be home with them. They’ll be worried enough if they wake up without their father home.”

  “But I don’t want to go home,” she said without much conviction.

  “I know that. And I know you’re worried about your husband. I appreciate your feelings, Mrs. Brand, but what good will come of you sitting around this office?”

  “You think Ted’s cheating on me, don’t you?”

  “No one said that, Mrs. Brand. In fact, I’d guess there’s a perfectly reasonable answer to this thing.” He forced himself to make eye contact. “How can you be sure he didn’t check into a hotel here or somewhere else on the way home? People get tired when they drive at night.”

  She was shaking her head before he’d even finished. “No, Ted never does that. He can drive all night. On trips or wherever. He never gets tired.”

  “Isn’t it possible?”

  “I’m sorry, but no, it’s not.” She stared up at him, her eyes appealing.

  “Okay, Mrs. Brand. Can I call you by your first name?”

  “It’s Linda.”

  “Alright, Linda,” he said. “Let’s talk a little more about your husband.”

  As Linda Brand began to talk, Sam thought more and more about the lawyer stepping out on her. Granted, it was possible he had crashed his car somewhere or gotten mugged. But Sam’s money was on the guy screwing another woman.

  “Tell me what Ted looks like.”

  “He’s very handsome. Tall, athletic. He was a pitcher in high school…”

  And as Linda Brand went on, Sam began to nod.

  Ted’s first thought upon waking was that his face itched. He moved his hand to scratch it, but the rope caught and reopened the cut on his wrist.

  His head began to pound. What time was it? he wondered. He remembered his days as an undergrad, a psych class he’d taken. They studied a lot of boring shit in that course, but there had been one interesting lesson about prisoners in solitary confinement, how darkness and time deprivation led to panic. Now Ted could see why. Down here in this fucking dungeon it could be noon or midnight. He had no idea how much time had passed, but he was certain by now that Linda would be looking for him.

  He tried to remain calm but felt himself slipping. He was trapped, would soon be dead if he didn’t escape. But what the hell could he do?

  That fucking stupid cunt, she had no right to do this to him, had no right to behave like a Spanish inquisitor, and why did his face itch like it was full of bugs and what was that crap tickling his lips and getting in his mouth? What the hell, had the iced tea transformed into a cadre of flesh-eating bugs bent on driving him insane?

  “Let me out of this fucking hole!” he bellowed.

  She must have been upstairs, waiting for him to call to her because seconds after he’d screamed, the light flicked on, blinding him. He heard footsteps on the stairs. His eyes adjusted to the light, and he was about to demand she release him when he realized why his face was itching and what it was he’d been spitting out.

  Ants.

  He was acrawl with them. They teemed over his face and body, and through his writhing and spitting he glimpsed her standing there with huge eyes and knew she was as surprised as he was, and he didn’t give a good god damn whether or not she’d meant for this to happen, it had, and the moment she let him out of the ropes he’d make her pay for it.

  Then his voice was rising because she was backing away, her hand on her mouth, climbing the steps, saying something about a needle, and his teeth clenched savagely as he blinked away the ants, and the last thing he said to her before she reached the doorway above was that he’d peel her skin off and let the ants eat her raw flesh.

  Then she was gone, and Ted was alone with his agony.

  The ballroom was grand.

  A floor laid with white hexagonal tiles and sprinkled with smaller black ones spread out before him, magnifying the size of the great hall. The curved staircase beside the ballroom led to a long balcony. Beyond the wooden balusters, the rooms that overlooked the dance floor reminded him of an ups
cale hotel.

  He decided to investigate the bar. Pushing a stool out of the way, he hopped onto the dusty wooden surface, swung his legs over the edge and landed on the other side. Squatting, he inspected the cache of liquor.

  Paul smiled.

  The cherry-wood shelves were fully stocked. There were three kinds of everything. Gin, vodka, scotch, bourbon. Everything. He peered to his left and found two full fifths of Jim Beam, his favorite. The varied bottles of alcohol faced him with bright smiles, eager school children ready to participate in the day’s lesson.

  It was wonderful. And terrible.

  Emerging from behind the bar, he trailed a hand over one of the burgundy crushed velvet couches and moved toward the curved staircase. It was like being on a movie set. Pausing at the top of the stairs, he grasped the wooden banister of the balcony and gazed down, marveling at his good fortune.

  It was all his.

  He couldn’t believe it.

  A week ago he’d lived in a tenement. This was a palace.

  He opened a door and gazed at the old-fashioned wallpaper, the canopied bed. Moving to the next room, he found the same thing, except the wallpaper was different.

  Eight thousand square feet, he remembered as he moved to the third door. What the hell was he going to do with eight thousand square feet? Maybe turn the ballroom into a basketball court, the upstairs into a brothel.

  Exploring the rest of the hallway, he discovered a sitting room, two bathrooms, another bedroom. At the end of the hall he mounted the back staircase and felt the temperature warm.

  He scanned the third floor corridor. There were fewer doors here, which meant larger rooms.

  He opened the first door, flipped on the light. To his right sat a sewing table and an old black Singer that looked like a miniature oil derrick. Paul glanced at a cabinet festooned with enamel animals and other curios and decided he’d not be spending much time here. He moved on.

  Behind the next door sat a large mahogany desk and a Tiffany reading lamp. The study. Leaving the door ajar, he moved to the window and raised the blind. The view was majestic. The grassy backyard was the size of a city block.