Disturbed

by Kevin O'Brien

  “Not really,” he murmured. He was stumped. For some reason, he’d imagined his aunt moving into the house — and Molly leaving. Part of him thought whatever bad luck Molly had brought to this house and this block might disappear along with her. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he didn’t want to get close to her. Hell, she had a brother who was mentally ill — and a murderer. Was it something hereditary that could be passed on to his half sibling? And that night they’d waited up for his dad, he’d watched her smuggle a steak knife into the bedroom. What was that about?

  Now, with a baby on the way, Molly would probably stay on with them. Then again, maybe she wouldn’t want to stay on.

  “What are you thinking?” his Aunt Trish asked.

  He shrugged. “Nothing, I hadn’t really considered anything past tomorrow and the funeral and all.”

  “Well, you need to talk to Molly, Chris,” she said, blotting the tofu cubes with a paper towel.

  He nodded, sipped his Coke, and wandered toward the front of the house. He stepped into his father’s study. For the last few days, he couldn’t set foot in this room without crying. But for the moment, his eyes were dry.

  He glanced out the window and noticed a man walking his dog past the house. Chris could only see his silhouette.

  He was thinking about Molly and the bad luck that followed her around. He wondered how many days would go by before someone else was hurt or killed.

  He studied the Dennehy house — from the street this time, rather than from the woods in back. He had a dog on a leash, a mixed-breed stray he’d picked up yesterday. He’d let it go fend for itself again after this slow walk up and down Willow Tree Court.

  He had used the dog-walking routine before to scope out different homes. It was a good ruse. People didn’t worry about someone lurking in front of their home at night if the stranger had a dog on a leash. All they worried about was the dog crapping on their lawn. That older couple with the boy in college, he’d cased their Queen Anne home for six nights while walking some dog, a corgi, if he remembered right. No one ever noticed him.

  He couldn’t take his eyes off the Dennehy place. He already knew the entrances: front, through the garage, and a sliding glass door into the family room. A window by their breakfast table looked like the best way in. But he might end up just knocking on the front door, too. That was why he had all the different costumes in his secret room at home. Those outfits — deliveryman, cable man, paramedic — they opened doors for him. That had been how he’d gotten inside two of his homes.

  The Dennehy house was perfect. There was a widow, an older boy in high school, and a little girl. Their house was a bit different from the one on Rochelle Lane — the one belonging to his widowed aunt. But it was on a cul-de-sac, and the ages of the Dennehy children were close to those of his cousins.

  When he was eight, he had to stay with them at their house on Rochelle Lane in Ballard. His mother, who never married, used to dump him there for weeks at a time while she went to chase after some guy. He became the whipping boy for the family. His older cousin used to make him strip naked, and then he’d beat him up. The bratty kid sister told lies about him that would send his monster of an aunt into a tirade. As punishment, she’d lock him in a small, dark closet on the second floor — sometimes for as long as six or eight hours. He was always so grateful for the light. But that was one of the old bitch’s bugaboos — when someone left a light on in a room. His cousins always blamed him whenever it happened, and he’d be locked in that upstairs closet again.

  Every time his mother picked him up, he’d beg her not to send him back to live with his cousins. She told him that if he behaved better, he wouldn’t get punished. She always drove him back there whenever some new man came into her life. He remembered dreading the sight of that NO OUTLET sign at the end of their block.

  Funny thing about time; it seemed those visits to his cousins went on for weeks at a time over a period of two or three years. But it was all within a year. He remembered having his ninth birthday with Warren, the stoner guy who eventually moved in with his mother. He wasn’t sent to stay with his cousins again after Warren came into the picture.

  In fact, he didn’t set foot inside the Rochelle Lane house again — not until ten months ago, when he returned to Seattle after some jail time in St. Louis. He’d moved around a lot with his mother, and later with his mother and Warren. And he’d lived many places after he went out on his own at age seventeen. But the place that most seemed like his home had been his cousins’ split-level at the end of that cul-de-sac. As much as he’d hated that place, he felt as if he’d grown up there.

  Last February, he wanted to see it again. From the outside, the place hadn’t changed much in twenty years. But other things were different. His bitch of an aunt had died of cancer in 2004. His older cousin, the sexual bully, had been killed in a car accident at age nineteen. He never found out what happened to his bratty younger cousin.

  He stopped by the house on a Wednesday afternoon, when the winter sun was just starting to set. He had his switchblade with him. He carried it all the time. He really hadn’t planned on using it that afternoon. He knocked on the door, and someone called out from the other side: “Who is it?”

  “You don’t know me, but I grew up in this house,” he answered. “I lived here for three years with my aunt and my two cousins.”

  The door opened a crack — as far as the chain lock allowed. Through the chink, a handsome woman in her late sixties stared out at him. She had close-cropped silver hair with bangs and wore a lavender tracksuit.

  “Sorry if I scared you,” he said with a smile. “I’ve been away from Seattle for several years, and thought I’d take a sentimental journey. My cousins were the Coulters. I don’t suppose you bought the house from them.”

  Eying him warily, she shook her head.

  “Does the bathroom in the lower level still have those pink hexagon tiles?” he asked. “And is there still an old hand-crank pencil sharpener mounted on the wall as you walk into the furnace room? I always thought that was a strange place for a pencil sharpener.”

  She broke into a grin. “The tiles and the pencil sharpener are both still there.”

  He chuckled. “That’s good to know. Well, thanks for your time. .” He turned as if he were going to leave. He heard the chain lock rattling.

  “Listen,” she said. “Would you like to come in?”

  He swiveled around and smiled at her. She had the door open now. “You sure it’s not too much trouble?” he asked sheepishly.

  “No trouble at all,” she replied, opening the door wider. “You’ll have to excuse the way the place looks. I wasn’t expecting company. . ”

  The newspaper said her name was Irene Haskel, and she was seventy-four, a widow with two children and five grandchildren. He’d thought she was younger than that. In fact, he’d figured her to be about sixty-five, the same as his aunt would have been — had she lived.

  She let him look at the upper level, and he stood outside that closet beside the bathroom. There had been a laundry hamper in there, and shelves full of sheets and towels that kept him from standing up all the way. His aunt had had another shelf with medicines, ointments, enema bottles, and a smelly old heating pad. The whole closet had smelled like that heating pad.

  He noticed the bolt lock still on the outside of that door. He hadn’t realized how flimsy it was until that moment.

  Standing beside that woman who could have been his late aunt and stepping inside that house again brought back so much rage. He kept telling himself that she was a nice enough lady. He was still telling himself that as he grabbed her by the hair.

  The Seattle Times reported that Irene Haskel had received thirty-eight stab wounds. Funny, he counted a lot — usually the seconds in order to time people and determine how long they took to do things. But he hadn’t counted how many times he’d stabbed that woman with his switchblade. In fact, he barely remembered shoving her inside that tiny closet.
>
  What he remembered most was how powerful he felt afterward. He turned on practically every light in her house, and as he drove away, he stole the NO OUTLET sign from the end of the block.

  The sense of vindication from the experience was so intoxicating that he had to do it again and again. He’d made it into a ritual now, refining every step a little more each time. The killing had almost become secondary now. The best rush was watching his victims tying each other up while he promised no one would get hurt. It gave him all the power and control. He was in charge.

  Some ignorant shrink speculated in the newspaper about how conflicted he was. The analyst said he wanted to be discovered, so he turned on all the lights in the house. At the same time, he was ashamed, so he hid the bodies in closets. Stupid.

  There was no conflict. He knew exactly what he was doing and how it made him feel. It made him feel exhilarated.

  He slowed down as he walked past the Dennehy house again. He could see someone in one of the front windows. It was the teenage boy.

  When the time came, he would save him for last.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Exactly one week after Chris and Erin had buried their mother they were sitting in the front pew at the funeral mass for their dad.

  Molly was in the same pew, but she might as well have been alone. Chris had asked Elvis to sit with him. Erin wanted nothing to do with her and clung to her Aunt Trish. Molly was the fifth wheel, seated on the aisle with Elvis at her side.

  One good thing about being on the aisle — at least it was easier for her to make a hasty exit when she felt sick, even with the walk of shame down the aisle in front of everyone. Halfway through the service, she’d had to go get some fresh air. Rachel, several pews back, walked her outside, and she gave her a peppermint from her purse. It seemed to help — for a while anyway.

  Molly felt a bit light-headed again as the priest gave the final blessing. She was supposed to lead the congregation out of the church, and when she did, Molly signaled to Rachel to help her. Her neighbor quickly came to her rescue, put an arm around her, and helped her down the aisle and out the church.

  Outside, a few people shook her hand and gave their condolences. Molly kept thinking she just needed to lie down. But she hung in there, nodding and thanking people while Rachel kept a hand on her back. She looked around for Chris and Erin, but didn’t see them on the sidewalk in front of the church.

  Jill and Natalie approached her together, and each one shook her hand. It threw Molly for a loop. She hadn’t noticed them among the congregation and couldn’t believe Natalie, of all people, had come to Jeff’s service. The reclusive neighbor gave Molly a tiny, joyless smile. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she murmured.

  “Thank you, Natalie,” she managed to say. “And thank you for coming.”

  “Jenna? Jenna, is that you?”

  Molly glanced over her shoulder toward the street. A thin, fortyish woman with her frizzy brown-gray hair half hidden by a bike helmet pedaled by on a bicycle. She wore a blue Windbreaker, and her bike toted a little go-cart carriage for a toddler, who was also in a bike helmet and bundled up in a jacket.

  The bicyclist was looking right toward her — and her neighbors. “Jenna Corson, is that you?” she called.

  Molly twisted around to look at Natalie, who suddenly glanced over her own shoulder. Molly didn’t see anyone else who seemed to notice the bicyclist — or react to the name Jenna Corson.

  Why would Ray Corson’s widow want to come to Jeff’s funeral?

  Molly turned toward the woman on the bike again. With a puzzled, slightly embarrassed look, the bicyclist pedaled on — the child in the attached cart trailing behind her.

  “Well, that’s a little tacky,” Molly heard Rachel whisper, “yelling at someone coming out of a funeral mass. Do you know this Jenna Carlson?”

  “Corson,” Molly murmured numbly. “Her husband was Chris’s guidance counselor at the high school.” She glanced around for Chris. If he was nearby, he might have recognized Mrs. Corson; but then Molly remembered — he’d never met her.

  If anyone had a better reason not to mourn Jeff’s passing it would have been Jenna Corson. “You have a lot of nerve showing up here,” Ray Corson’s sister had growled at her and Chris at the Corson wake when they’d asked to talk to Jenna. “Haven’t you done enough damage? She’s been through hell, thanks to you people.”

  Why in the world would Jenna Corson attend Jeff’s funeral?

  Had she come to gloat?

  The woman on the bicycle seemed to have been addressing one of her neighbors. Molly turned to face Natalie, but she wasn’t there anymore. She’d disappeared among the mourners. “Natalie?” she called. “Natalie?”

  No heads turned in the crowd. She wondered if Natalie looked like Jenna Corson.

  Then it hit her. What if Natalie was Jenna Corson?

  “Jenna!” she impulsively cried out. “Jenna Corson?”

  “Molly, what are you doing?” she heard Rachel ask.

  “She’s been through hell, thanks to you people.”

  Was it Ray Corson’s widow who had asked Kay the week before her death if she thought she was a good mother?

  “You’re going to pay for what you did,” someone had told Angela.

  That same someone had Angela, her boyfriend, and his daughter murdered. And that same night she’d arranged for Jeff to meet her in Vancouver. She’d known all along Jeff would have to account for his whereabouts that evening. Molly could still hear that raspy voice: “Do you know where Jeff was that night, Mrs. Dennehy?”

  She could still see Angela in that booth in the restaurant, a glass of wine in her hand. She’d wondered out loud: “Maybe Jeff has found someone new, and she wants to sit back and watch us scratch each other’s eyes out.”

  In order to sit back and watch, she’d have had to be close by all the time. She’d have to be a neighbor.

  “Jenna Corson, is that you?” the woman had called, staring directly at Molly and the women from her block. Everyone was there, except Lynette Hahn, who was at the hospital with Courtney.

  Molly thought about Courtney’s “accident” and Jeremy’s arrest, their kids getting cut up in the vacant lot, Rachel’s toolshed catching fire, Chris’s locker being broken into, and the smashed pumpkins. Someone had hired a sleazy detective to look into her family history — months before Angela admitted to doing the same thing. He or she planted an anonymous note to Chris inside his locker and sent a letter to Rachel.

  “. . she wants to sit back and watch. .”

  She remembered Lynette confronting her a few nights ago: “For two years, I lived here — and we were all very happy, and then you moved in. . and everything changed.” But Lynette wasn’t quite right. Molly had lived on the block for ten months, and no had been hurt or killed. But then less than two weeks after Ray Corson’s murder, Kay had had her fatal accident.

  “Jenna?” Molly cried out, weaving through the crowd. “Jenna? I know you’re here!” It all started to make sense, and the horrible realization made Molly’s stomach turn. Ray Corson’s widow was there, watching.

  “Molly, for God’s sake,” Rachel whispered, trailing after her.

  She caught a glimpse of Chris, by the church steps with Elvis. He was scowling at her as if she was crazy. His face seemed to go out of focus. The sidewalk felt wobbly. Molly’s head was spinning. She reached toward Rachel just as her legs started to give out.

  Then everything went black.

  She could hear people downstairs, chatting quietly. Molly opened her eyes and saw Rachel sitting at her bedside. For a moment, she felt totally disoriented and thought it was morning. But then she saw the digital clock on her nightstand: 12:55 P.M.

  Molly realized she was still in her dress from the funeral. She vaguely remembered riding home in the limo, and Chris and Elvis helping her upstairs to the bedroom. Trish was supposed to be hosting a brunch.

  Molly tried to sit up. “Who’s downstairs?” she asked groggi
ly. “Are Jill and Natalie down there?”

  Rachel shook her head. “No, the brunch was kind of a bust. People could see you weren’t exactly up for entertaining. And the few that came over got one look at the boozefree, meatless vegan spread Miss Crunchy Granola had laid out, and they headed for the hills.” She reached for the bottle of ginger capsules on Molly’s nightstand. “It didn’t even last an hour. The only ones left down there are Trish and a friend of hers, Chris and his pal, and Erin — and a ton of rabbit food no one touched.” She took out a pill and offered her a tumbler of water. “Here. .”

  Molly shook her head. “No, I think those are making me even sicker.”

  With a shrug, Rachel put down the tumbler and set the pill beside it. “In case you change your mind.” She moved over and sat at the end of the bed. “So — you kind of scared me out there in front of the church. What’s the story with this Jenna person? You said she was the wife of Chris’s coach?”

  “She’s the widow of Chris’s guidance counselor,” Molly said, reaching for the tumbler on her nightstand. She gulped down some water. “Her name is Jenna Corson, and I–I think she’s behind all the strange things that have been happening on this block — including Jeff’s death. . ”

  Molly somehow felt stronger as she explained to Rachel about who Jenna Corson was and why she would want to hurt the people on the cul-de-sac.

  “Why would this Jenna person threaten me?” Rachel asked. “I didn’t have anything to do with her husband getting the ax at Chris’s high school. I wasn’t even living here at the time. Yet she was ready to burn my house down. I didn’t want to tell you, Molly, but I got another one of those calls yesterday, and that lady is crazy. Why would she pick on me?”