The Stranger in the Attic

by Agnes Makoczy

  He should have gone downstairs, but he couldn’t do that. He needed to see for himself that there was nothing going on upstairs that shouldn’t be seen, so he took the steps, slower than he wanted to, always listening, but unable to distinguish the words that were being said.

  Finally, he took the last step and found himself on the landing, and he noticed that the attic door was open, and a cheerful light flooded through the open door into the darker hallway.

  His hands began to shake, and his heart did somersaults. He had never felt like this before. He had never had reasons to feel like this before and wasn’t sure what to do, what to say, how to act. But he knew that he had to see for himself, even though he hadn’t been invited.

  The scene that assaulted him was disturbing in its intimacy. Framed by the doorway, in a tableau of distressing secrecy, there stood Henrietta looking up at the lodger while too close for comfort, as he stood looming over her, gently wiping the tears off her face.

  He cried out loud without noticing that he had done so, and the two figures—who had been completely lost in each other—both turned toward him, and he saw Henrietta’s eyes open in horror.

  He ran to the steps, and he flew downstairs. In the living room, Charlie still sat politely waiting for him, playing with his phone. He stopped and looked at Charlie and debated whether he should say something or not. For now, all he could see was red behind his cornea, the red of anger and confusion.

  He grabbed his coat and waving Charlie’s questions away, stepped out into the bitter cold.

  Chapter 50. Alfred Runs

  Henrietta panicked. Without a word to George Baxter, she took off after Alfred. She wasn’t thinking. There was nothing to think about, except that she knew that if she didn’t catch Alfred on time, something horrible would happen.

  She should have shared her concerns with her husband, but she had been mesmerized by those deep dark eyes, and the aroma of wild adventure that emanated from the body of her lodger. She had never felt such danger, and she had never been so excited by it. But the moment that she faced the truth, her soul crumbled. She had but one husband. The rest had been a ridiculous dream.

  Charlie was still sitting, scratching his head when Henrietta grabbed her coat. Within seconds she too was out the door, following Alfred, determined to find him before it was too late.

  She looked around and saw him heading for the park. He was already on the other side of Ember Street. She ran and ran, calling out his name, but the honking of the angry cars that threatened to run her over drowned her voice, and he never looked back.

  Henrietta ran on, pushing balloon vendors and people standing in lines for buses out of her way. The snow crunched under her feet, the sleet scratched her face, and the arthritis punished her knees to excruciating levels of pain, but she kept on.

  Finally, she saw Alfred, collapsed on a park bench covered in frozen snow, his head on his arms, breathing heavily.

  “Alfie, Alfie, I’m so sorry. We’ve got to talk,” she said, approaching him gently.

  “No, Henrietta. We have nothing to talk about.” Alfred jumped up from the bench and pointed an angry finger at her. “I saw you,” he said. “I saw him caressing your face. I saw how you looked at him. Have you ever even looked at me in this way?”

  “Alfie, listen. There’s something you must know. Let me tell you, and afterward, you can be as angry with me as you want.”

  Alfred stared at her sullenly, but he finally sat back down and nodded.

  “All right, tell me.” He crossed his arms on his chest defensively and waited.

  “Alfie, I think he’s the killer,” she said simply. “I think he’s the serial killer.”

  Alfred opened his mouth and stared at Henrietta.

  “Yes, Alfred. Listen. I befriended him, yes, because I was sort of lonely. You’re always on another planet. And I’m sorry about that. But the better I got to know him, the stranger some of the things he did seemed to me.”

  “But like what?”

  “Well, he goes out in the middle of the night.”

  “Nothing wrong with that, I don’t think.”

  “No, but it feels wrong.”

  “That’s no reason to accuse someone of murder,” Alfred reasoned.

  “Well, no. But he’s also very strange.”

  “It’s called being eccentric.”

  “Yes, but listen, the killings started right after he moved in.”

  “They did? Are you sure?”

  “Yes, of course I am. And then there are those notes pinned to the dead bodies. Accusing women. They’re horrible. George Baxter hates women.”

  Alfred got up angrily. He paced in front of the frozen bench, shaking his head.

  “I beg to differ,” he said. “I saw how he looked at you, how he touched your face. He didn’t seem like a woman-hater to me.”

  “No, I know. And when I went upstairs to tell him of the last murder, I thought I would catch him looking guilty, but he surprised me. I was nervous because I was so scared of him, and I started crying. But I felt no guilt in him, only sadness and kindness.”

  “Was that when he touched your face?”

  “Yes, I think he was wiping my tears off.”

  Alfred sat back down and put his head in his hands. Henrietta patted his back and continued to apologize. But Alfred kept moving away from her.

  “Don’t expect me to be friends now, Henrietta. I’m very hurt.”

  “Nothing happened, Alfie. I’m an old woman.”

  “What you are is a silly woman. You haven’t even turned fifty yet. You’re not old at all.”

  “Tonight, I feel like I was a hundred.”

  “What now?”

  “I don’t know, Alfie. I’m not sure that he’s guilty anymore.”

  “If we lose him, we’ll go hungry again.”

  “I know. Oh, how I know.”

  Henrietta sat silently next to her husband until she couldn’t take the cold any longer.

  “We have to go back in. We’ll catch our deaths out here.”

  Alfred nodded and allowed himself to be led away. As they waited for the light to turn green so that they could safely cross Ember Street at the zebra, Alfred said he had something to share as well.

  “You know, Henrietta. All along I’ve been thinking that it could be Oscar.”

  “Seriously? Is that why you haven’t visited with him these last few days?”

  “Yes. After the second murder, we went to the back of the park, to the Hunting Lodge where they had found that young woman. Oscar was especially curious about the crime scene, so I allowed myself to be talked into going. But what I saw disgusted me so much that I haven’t been able to talk to him again.”

  “What did you see?”

  “The way he drooled with excitement when they brought the body out on a stretcher. We were quite far, but not far enough. That poor girl. One of the orderlies stumbled, and the sheet covering her body slipped. I saw her pretty face, and she had some gorgeous red hair, like yours was when I met you, and very long. It must have reached to her waist. And her arm was uncovered, and there were streaks of blood on it. It broke my heart. I thought of Celia, our child. But Oscar was so excited. He was relishing all the gory details. He even took pictures with his phone. It was appalling. He was panting with excitement. I can’t ever talk to him again.”

  They were almost home when Alfred stopped and looked at her.

  “Henrietta,” he said. “Your hair is still red.”

  “I know, Alfie. I know.”

  Chapter 51. Funeral

  Rosalie’s funeral brought Celia home, and for a few days, all other troubles were set aside and forgotten. Celia was so distraught that she became the center of everyone’s focus.

  Henrietta comforted the child the best she could, did the cleaning, the cooking, and everything else she habitually did every day, but there was trouble in her soul. Without anyone to share her concerns with, she kept them within herself, where they festered.
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  At night, she tossed and turned, unable to calm her mind long enough to fall asleep. Alfred’s escapade the other night was never mentioned again, but it remained at the back of her mind like a worm, eating the heart of the apple, covertly, ugly and corruptive, and she kept revisiting the image of the man with the lead pipe, facing her husband, looking like he wanted to kill.

  And there were other things. Oscar and the Hunting Lodge. The murders, yes, all those women with red hair, and of course the thought of poor, naïve, Rosalie, dead in a casket waiting to be buried. And Pierre, the boy she had loved, who now probably lay on an abandoned country road, the snow falling on his young dead face.

  But none of that compared to the confusion in her heart. George Baxter—seemingly cold and aloof—gazing kindly at her with those magnetic dark eyes, and his fingertips, gently wiping away her tears.

  The nights loomed unendingly. No matter what she tried, Henrietta was unable to sleep. All she had to do was close her eyes, to begin remembering that unforgettable feeling, his breath on her eyelids and his fingers brushing away her tears. Then she would toss about in torment some more.

  Yet in the daytime, she pretended well. She often told herself that life was back to normal, but there was nothing further from the truth. And however, if any of the others noticed that something was amiss with her, they didn’t say.

  And so, the day of the funeral dawned gray and drizzly. A bitterly cold wind blew through Ember Street, rattling windows and shutters, and threatening a storm.

  Henrietta—fighting her depression and trying to focus on the job at hand—made sure that Alfie and the child were well bundled up and properly dressed before they set out for the church. Then they sat down to wait.

  As she sat on the hard-backed chair by the fireplace and waited for Charlie to pick them up, Henrietta listened to the floors above with her eyes closed, hoping to at least hear the floorboards creak as the lodger walked around. She imaged him sitting in his place by the window, reading from her Bible, or eating the food she had prepared for him with so much care.

  For the last few days, there hadn’t been any sign of George Baxter. He was eating his food. He always returned his tray empty to the side table outside of his door. Rent day came, and there she found the envelope with the full amount of cash due, one month’s advance, on the tray next to the empty plates. According to all appearances, it was—at least for him—life as usual.

  Charlie picked them up an hour early. Henrietta was surprised when Celia asked to sit in the front seat of the car, with him. The moment she had feared had arrived. Was Celia falling for the young man? As she and Alfie sat back in their seats, Celia and Charlie chatted. A few times, Charlie patted the child’s hand and she didn’t withdraw it. Henrietta looked out of her window and tried not to think about such a bleak future.

  The little church by the cemetery was packed, and as they sat there, more and more people kept crowding inside. Rosalie had many friends, and her parents were very much loved by the community. Had they not arrived early, they would have never been able to find a pew to sit in.

  So many people had sent flowers and wreaths that the place smelled like a flower shop, the asphyxiating smell of those white lilies, and the roses, and the gardenias, all making her nauseous. Two altar boys dressed all in white walked up the nave, carrying incense burners, swinging them on chains from side to side, letting the noxious smoke of the burning incense spread above the heads of the parishioners.

  Henrietta’s eyes wandered about. She saw Rosalie’s grandmother get up from her seat in the front row and raise her arms toward Jesus on the Cross, and she felt embarrassed for the old woman. That was what people used to do in the old country, but not here, not in America. She watched the old woman wail. Two men tried to make her sit, but she tore herself away from their hands, suddenly cried out as if in pain, and fell in a dead faint on the flagstones.

  The polite murmur suddenly got loud. People jumped up, ostentatiously to help Rosalie’s grandmother, but Henrietta—who had come to a sudden understanding of the human heart—knew it was curiosity and not compassion.

  At that moment, the pallbearers began bringing in the white casket, covered with flowers, and as she turned her head following its progress, there stood George Baxter by a column. She watched him intently, but at that moment, the pallbearers and the casket passed in front of her eyes, blocking her view, and once they had moved on, he was no longer there.

  Impatiently, she listened to the organist as she played some sad, sad songs, and then the choir sang. The preacher had some nice—but generic—words for the bereaved, and friends and family moaned softly as he spoke. Celia, crumpled next to her, sobbed with sorrow, and she held the child and her handkerchief. But all Henrietta could think of was running outside, to see if George Baxter were really there. Why had he come?

  And then, it was all over. The parishioners filed out of the church in an orderly fashion, standing in line to give the family their condolences.

  Outside, by the open grave, the drizzle had turned to snow, and the wind had picked up, blowing about frozen dead leaves and twigs. Those who had umbrellas opened them. Others who didn’t, huddled together the best they could to escape the worst of the falling snow. The poor preacher, really not dressed for this abominable weather, bravely said some words as he shivered. Finally, Rosalie’s mom told him to go back inside before he froze to death.

  People threw flowers into the grave, on top of the white casket, and then slowly dispersed. But Celia wasn’t ready to go, so Henrietta stood by Alfred and Charlie to give her time. Grief would take longer than that to heal, Henrietta knew, and she wanted the girl to have enough time to say goodbye.

  Henrietta had wished so much to see Peter there, still hoping that her vision had been a mistake and that he was still alive, somewhere out there, but he didn’t show. Surely his heart would have been broken to see his beloved—mother of his first child—dead so young. She remembered how vivid and full of details that quick image had been, of Peter lying dead by the side of a nondescript country road. But she didn’t want him dead. It wasn’t him who had hurt her child’s friend.

  Her gaze traveled slowly around the wet, white, endless expanse that covered most of the crosses and tombstones, thinking about the gruesome peacefulness of death, when she thought she saw George Baxter again. And this time, she was sure.

  “Wait here,” she told Alfred. “I think that’s the lodger. I’ll be right back.”

  She took off. The tall, slender man with a very long overcoat whose bottom part flapped in the wind, was also wearing that unusual rounded hat. Only one person could pull that bizarre look and still look respectable. She decided to follow.

  Whether George Baxter knew or not that he had been seen, he never looked back. He walked fast, his long legs carrying him swiftly with ease, whereas Henrietta kept stumbling in the snow.

  At the entrance to the cemetery, the peace from within was shattered by the sound of cars and motorcycles zooming by, and she saw people hurry back and forth, and afraid to lose George Baxter again, she renewed her efforts. One street over, right by the flower vendors, she caught up with him. She was so close that she could have touched his shoulder, when she heard a woman call George’s name out loud.

  Startled, she stepped back. But George Baxter didn’t seem surprised at all. The woman, younger than him by a good ten years, tall and attractive, and well bundled in an expensive-looking winter coat, hurried to meet him and threw her arms around him.

  Henrietta was rooted to the ground. George never saw her, even though she remained paralyzed in the middle of the street. He returned the younger woman’s embrace and told her something into her ear to which they both laughed out loud. Then, arm in arm, they happily walked away.

  Chapter 52. Dead Bird Moving

  Alfred helped Henrietta out of Charlie’s car, and they walked arm in arm toward the house, holding onto each other for dear life. The piles that had originally been snow had now melted
and frozen numerous times over, and the pavement had become as slick as a death trap.

  They mounted the stairs slowly, careful not to slip. Alfred took his glove off and put his hand in his pocket to retrieve the key, when he noticed something squirming in front of the door on the floor.

  “Step back, Henrietta,” he said loudly, and he shot an arm out to hold her back.

  “What is it, Alfie?” Henrietta asked, trying to get closer.

  By then, Charlie and Celia had caught up with them and Charlie hurried up the steps to stand next to Alfred.

  “It’s a dead bird, Mrs. Jones,” he said. Better stand back.

  “But it’s moving,” Henrietta said.

  “It just appears that way,” he answered, “because the wind is blowing its feathers.”

  “Poor dear thing,” Celia said and got close too. “Look, there’s a note pinned to its feathers. What does it say?”

  “Nothing,” Alfred quickly said and bent down to pull the piece of paper off the dead bird. Before anyone could say anything, he shoved the paper into his pocket and looked around with a rebellious and defying look, unwilling to be challenged.

  Alfred looked at Charlie and the young man nodded. He had a feeling that Charlie had read the paper, but he knew that the young man wouldn’t rat him out. It was a guy thing. Men stuck together, stood up for each other.

  “Nothing to worry about, Mrs. Jones and Celia. You all go on inside and I will take care of the bird. You go inside as well, Mr. Jones,” Charlie added, giving Alfred a pat on the back.

  Inside, after Charlie washed his hands very well, they all sat down to drink coffee and discuss the funeral. Nobody mentioned the dead bird or the piece of paper, but that was all that Alfred could think about. “Give me my stuff back, or else…” the note had said, and Alfred knew exactly who had left it there and what they had meant by that.

  But outwardly, he smiled and nodded, and sipped on his coffee, pretending to be having a normal time, all the while on the inside trying to figure out how he was going to get out of this mess.