I had nightmares, apparently, but I didn’t remember them and only the fact that I awoke to Teri’s soothing reassurances and her soft hands on my face clued me in that something was amiss. She told me, after the first time, that she’d been awakened by me thrashing around in the bed and crying out in my sleep, and though I didn’t remember anything, I was grateful for her comforting presence. When it happened again, however, and again, I began to feel guilty. I shouldn’t have been putting her through this. She didn’t seem to mind, though. She was patient. And understanding.
And she was always there.
We started carpooling to work. Her job required her to stay in her office all day, while mine often had me out showing houses, so it made sense that I was the one to drive. She could save on gas money, and wear and tear on her car. Not to mention the fact that we could enjoy each other’s company as we commuted. The bank headquarters where she worked was a little out of my way, but not inconveniently so, and we developed a routine, leaving the house around seven, stopping at a Starbuck’s near Orange Mall for some coffee, driving past Disneyland, then sitting in the car in the parking lot of her office building, talking until it was time for her to go in.
Life was good.
And except for those nightmares that I didn’t remember, I seemed to have put Frank and the past behind me.
****
A month or so later, we went on a weekend trip to meet her family. I knew Teri had a sister, and I knew that both of her parents were still alive, but they’d never appeared to be close, and I was surprised when she suggested that we visit.
Teri was from a small town in San Diego county called Ramona, a farming community in the mountain foothills some twenty miles past the San Diego Wild Animal Park. Her parents still lived in her childhood home, and both of her sisters’ families lived in nearby Escondido. They were all waiting for us when we arrived, the small driveway filled with two pickups and an SUV. I parked on the street, and by the time we got out of the car, we were engulfed in hugs and well wishes. Unbeknownst to me, Teri had sent them my picture from her phone, so I was at a disadvantage; I had never seen anyone before and had to be introduced several times to the same people before I got their names straight.
The house was a late-twentieth century tract home built in a subdivision that appeared to be a buffer zone between the quaint downtown, and the surrounding farms and chicken ranches. Inside, the fireplace mantle and tables were full of framed photos featuring Teri and her sisters, and I examined them closely. I’d never seen what she looked like as a child and was not surprised to see that she’d been the cutest of the three. Both of her sisters were pretty, though, as was her mom, which boded well for Teri’s future.
Iced tea and water were distributed to those who wanted them—and then began the serious matter of the inquisition. Julie was the sister with children, and her husband Ron took the kids outside to play, while the rest of us remained in the living room. Under the guise of a casual conversation, my romantic history, financial prospects and intentions toward Teri were extracted, and while I’d definitely had more painful encounters in the past, meeting the family was never fun.
I must have passed the test, though, because they eased off fairly quickly, and as the topic shifted from me to family gossip, I sensed no underlying hostility. Real estate had made me into a facile conversationalist, but there was no need to fall back on my professional skills. Her dad and I genuinely hit it off, and while the rest of the family talked about people I didn’t know and incidents I hadn’t been a part of, we discussed Humphrey Bogart movies.
Sometime in the middle of the conversation, I heard a baby crying in a back bedroom. Assuming it was one of her sister’s, I waited for someone to get up and go to the infant, to comfort it or feed it or change its diaper or do whatever needed to be done, but either no one else heard the cries or they were all ignoring it, so I finally asked, “Isn’t someone going to check on the baby?”
Julie frowned. “What baby?”
Sure enough, the sound had stopped. I looked from face to face, confused. “I thought I heard a baby crying.”
“No,” Teri’s mom said.
“Maybe it was next door or something,” Julie suggested. “The window’s open.”
“Probably,” I said, nodding.
Everyone went back to their conversations, and eventually we went out to a Mexican restaurant for lunch.
Teri asked me about it that night. “What was that?”
“What was what?”
“That whole thing with the baby.”
“Nothing. I just thought I heard a baby crying.”
“Don’t give me that. It wasn’t nothing.” I could feel her eyes on me.
“It really was,” I told her, but I could tell from the expression on her face when I glanced over that she was suspicious. I couldn’t blame her. She’d heard a lot of craziness from me lately, and either she’d bought into it all, or she loved me enough to pretend that she did. Whichever, she was obviously on the alert for any odd behavior that I might exhibit.
“Seriously,” I said.
“Okay,” she declared after a moment, still not satisfied but apparently willing to let it go.
The rest of the short weekend was spent exploring Ramona and the nearby mountain town of Julien with her family. We had to endure numerous unsubtle hints from her mother about getting married, but though Teri found it annoying (and told her mom so), I thought it was kind of sweet. For the first time in my life, I could actually see myself getting married, and I could tell that Teri, despite her objections, had thoughts along the same lines.
I have only the Dark Wife now.
One thing that spending time with her family made me realize was how much I missed my own family. I wished my parents could have lived to see how I’d turned out, wished they were alive to meet Teri.
And I wished Billy was here, too.
The uptick in housing sales that had started at the end of summer continued into the beginning of fall, and what had begun as a bad year economically was turning out to be pretty good. I sold four houses in a six-week period, one of them a multi-million dollar residence on Skyline Drive in Fullerton, and I listed three properties from past clients that were on very desirable streets in upscale neighborhoods and were bound to go quickly. One of the clients turned me on to some new music I’d never heard before, an ensemble called the Helix Collective, and I found myself downloading their album All In and listening to it incessantly, the soundtrack to my fall selling season.
One busy Tuesday, after showing houses to a Korean family who wanted to move into the Sunny Hills High School district, I was washing my hands in the restroom at the office and preparing to eat a late lunch when, beneath the sound of the running water, I thought I heard the wail of a baby. The cry was faint, as though coming from very far away, and the second I turned off the faucet, it was gone. Had it been there at all? I wasn’t sure, and, just to check, I turned the water on again. There was indeed a high-pitched whine in the pipes. Could that have been it? I didn’t think so, but it was possible. It was also the most logical explanation, although logical explanations had been in short supply lately.
I checked with May and Mike, who were both at their desks, but neither of them had heard a thing. Just as with Teri’s family, the baby’s cries seemed to exist only for my benefit, and I spent the rest of the day in the office, catching up on paperwork, waiting to see if it would happen again. It did not, and when I went to the bathroom a few hours later, even the pipes were silent.
We made love after dinner that night. Teri was on her hands and knees and I was taking her from behind, when beneath her uninhibited screams of pleasure I heard—
a baby cry.
I stopped, pulling out, but the sound did not repeat.
“What are you doing?” she demanded breathlessly. “Put it back in!”
I
did, but my concentration was shot, my erection fading, and I hurriedly finished her off without coming myself.
Still breathing hard, she stood, a look of concern on her face. “What’s wrong?” she asked, stepping over our pile of discarded clothes.
“Nothing,” I told her.
“But you didn’t—”
“I thought I heard a baby crying.”
Silence greeted my admission.
“I know, I know. I’m probably imagining it—”
“I don’t think you’re imagining it.”
We looked at each other. It felt good to hear her say that. It felt terrible to hear her say that. She put her arms around me, pulled me close. We were both still naked, and the feel of her soft skin aroused me again. Smiling, she pulled me onto the floor and made me finish what we’d started. I heard the baby crying again in the middle of it, but this time I ignored the sound, and by the time we were finished, the noise had stopped.
Was I being haunted? It almost seemed so, as though the ghost of a baby had attached itself to me instead of to the location where it had died. Had I picked up the ghost at the B&B in Biscuitville? Or at Frank’s house outside Feldspar?
Maybe it was the ghost of a baby that Teri had lost or aborted before she met me.
I pushed that thought aside, knowing I was being an asshole for even thinking it. This whole thing had me rattled, and I had not been on sure footing since returning to Randall.
The crying baby disappeared—at least for awhile—but a week or two later I inherited a listing from May for a house that was supposed to be haunted. That was not the sort of thing that we would ever acknowledge to the general public, but realtors talk among themselves, and if a residence ever had a cold spot or mysterious shadows or unexplained noises, we all knew about it. I asked for the listing because I wanted to compare the vibe with what I’d felt at the various Frank houses, to see if there was any difference between an ordinary haunting and whatever it was that Frank was involved with. My first impulse was to keep it a secret—I was not used to sharing—but I decided to tell Teri, and over dinner I casually revealed my plan, making it seem like it was no big deal.
It felt like an adventure to her, and she wanted to go with me, so the next day, a Saturday, I stopped by the office for the key to the lockbox before we proceeded to the house. Located in an older section of La Habra, it was a single-story Mediterranean-style home from the 1940s, unusually well maintained for the surrounding neighborhood.
Once inside, I felt nothing. Teri didn’t either. We walked from room to room, listening in vain for odd noises, trying to pick up on any uncomfortable sensations, but we encountered nothing out of the ordinary. Disappointed, I turned to Teri. “You sure you don’t feel anything?”
She shook her head.
“Me either,” I sighed.
“I guess we’re not sensitive enough. Maybe you should bring a psychic here. Or at least a Ouija board.”
I wasn’t sure I believed in psychics, but if there was one who was real, I wondered what he or she would make of a Frank house.
I shook my head. Why was I even doing this? Why was I pursuing such a line of thought? I was supposed to be done with it all. I was supposed to have opted out.
From somewhere in the garage, I heard the faint cry of a baby.
The hair prickled on the back of my neck. That was why. I might want to be through with all of this paranormal activity, but it clearly wasn’t through with me.
The cry came again.
Maybe I should contact the team from Ghost Pursuers.
Yes! Why hadn’t I thought of it before?
I listened to the crying coming from the garage.
“Do you hear that?” I asked Teri.
She frowned. “No. What is it?” Understanding dawned in her face. “The baby?”
I nodded. “The baby.”
She followed me back into the kitchen and through the side door that led into the garage. I reached for the light switch and flipped it on. The garage was empty: an open-beamed room built on an oil-stained slab of concrete. I stood there for a moment, waiting for the baby to cry again, knowing it wouldn’t.
“Wah.”
It was a single soft wail, coming from the center of the open space before me, and every hair on my body stood on end. I turned to Teri. “Did you hear—?”
She shook her head.
Summoning every ounce of courage I possessed, I stepped into the center of the garage. I heard nothing, but there was a fleeting sensation of cold, as though I’d walked in front of an air-conditioner that suddenly shut off. I looked around the garage, wondering where the baby had gone, wondering if it was a baby.
“Anything?” Teri asked.
I shook my head. “Let’s go.”
As soon as we got home, I emailed the Ghost Pursuers team. I’d been given a generic email for the production company, but I addressed my message specifically to Scott Spencer, hoping that the producer would get back to me if he saw my name. I considered giving him a detailed account of my search for Frank, but figured I could go into all that later. Instead, I simply told him that I’d found another haunted house, one built and owned by the same man who’d built the two houses in Randall. I urged him to contact me ASAP. I still hadn’t decided whether I would accompany the team to Nevada—
I was supposed to be out of it, wasn’t I?
—but I desperately wanted Spencer and his crew to investigate that mirror-windowed home out in the middle of nowhere. The police certainly hadn’t come through for me. I wasn’t even sure they’d gone to check on Frank’s house, because the one time I’d called to find out what they’d learned, the sergeant answering the phone had basically blown me off.
“He’s wanted for questioning in a possible murder,” I told the man, but he informed me in an officious voice that they had nothing new to report at this time, and when they did, they would contact me.
I had not heard from them since.
“Why a baby?” Teri asked at dinner.
Lost in my own thoughts, I looked up at her. “What?”
“Why a baby? I mean, isn’t that kind of a weird thing to hear? And why only you? How does that sort of auditory exclusion work?”
She believed me, I realized. She really thought I’d heard a baby’s cry and was trying to reason out the logistics of it. Her support touched me, boosted my confidence, settled me down, and I knew at that moment that I loved her. I was about to tell her exactly that when the phone rang. It was one of her friends from work. She took the call in another room and was on the line so long that the mood was broken. Conditions had to be right for such a life-changing admission. A big reveal like this required the proper frame, and I decided to postpone my announcement and wait for a more opportune moment.
She was still on the phone when I poked my head in the doorway, held up the lockbox key and indicated that I was going to return it to the office. She nodded an acknowledgment, waving goodbye as she continued to talk, and I headed out.
To my surprise, May was at her desk, on her computer, when I arrived. May didn’t usually work on weekends—that time was reserved for her family, she said—and I asked her why she was here as I put the key away.
“We’re thinking of moving,” she told me.
That was unexpected. She and her husband had bought their house in Chino Hills less than a year ago, a no-frills split-level in an upscale neighborhood, and it had seemed a perfect fit.
“Van wants something closer to work; the traffic’s really getting to him. Me, too. To be honest, it was just talk at first, we weren’t really planning to do anything about it, but this new listing in Yorba Linda came up last week—it’s not even officially on the market yet—and it’s not only this great location, but the monthly payments would be a hundred less than we’re paying now.”
“Sounds perfect.”
“It is. The problem, though, is that if we want to sell quickly and maximize our takeaway—which we do, which we need to do if we’re going to scrape up enough for a competitive down payment—we have to have some work done on this storage shed thing that’s attached to the garage.”
“I remember it.”
“We either have to upgrade it or, more likely, tear it down and patch up that garage wall.”
“If you tear it down,” I told her, “you could plant a little flower garden in that spot. Gardens definitely help.”
May laughed. “You’re always good on the visuals.”
“Part of the job.”
“So are you working today?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No. I was just showing Teri that house off Lincoln.”
“The haunted house?” She grinned. “See anything?”
“We were hoping to, but no.”
“Don’t give up.”
“Does that mean you—?”
“No. Not exactly.” She shivered involuntarily. “But I really didn’t like the place.”
“We felt nothing.”
“Not everyone’s on the same wavelength. Some people pick up some frequencies, others pick up others. My haunted house might not be yours and yours might not be mine. We all sense different things.”
I’d never thought of it that way, but it made a kind of sense.
May picked up her phone again. “I’m going to talk to Van. I think we will tear out that storage shed. And I think we’ll steal your garden idea.”
“Flowers,” I told her. “Bright flowers. Red and yellow. They work every time.”
I checked my email as soon as I got home to see if Scott Spencer had replied, but he hadn’t, and I leaned back in my chair, closing my eyes. I had a throbbing headache, and there was a burning sensation in the pit of my stomach. Stress. Although I desperately hoped that Frank would be brought to justice, I just as desperately wanted to be left out of it. That did not seem to be possible, however. The crying infant I kept hearing guaranteed that I would be involved in all this whether I liked it or not, and my hope was that my Ghost Pursuer buddies could figure out a solution that would let me resume my normal life.
The Handyman Page 13
