Empty ever after

CHAPTER TEN

The dull green house at 22 Hanover Street was essentially unchanged from the first time I saw it in the winter of 1978. Neat, unadorned, perfectly maintained, the house had been a reflection of its owner, Francis Maloney Sr. I thought my ex-wife, a graphic designer by trade, might brighten the exterior when she moved in. Slap on a fresh coat of white paint, at the very least. Now as it was more a memorial to than a reflection of my father-in-law, I suppose Katy felt the need to keep up appearances. She claimed to hate her father and everything about him. But who knows, really? It was nearly impossible for me to figure out what she felt about anything anymore. At least she didn’t feel the need to let the memorial extend past the front door. Katy had pretty much redone the interior of the house. It was more comfortable, more about her and what she’d become than preserving where she’d come from.

The first time I came, it was winter. Snowmen tipsy from the thaw had stood guard as I rolled down the street. A noisy oil truck was making a delivery at the house next door. But on a hot July night, with ice cream truck serenades in the background and the green flashes of lightning bugs filling the air, that first time seemed forever ago. Except for the sheriff’s car parked in Katy’s driveway, it might have been a perfect summer evening.

The TV was tuned to CNN. Larry King was breathless over the minutiae of this week’s scandalous cotton candy or trial of the century. His panel of talking heads was, each in turn, louder and more hysterical than the next. Given the rapt attention of Sarah and Sheriff Vandervoort, I might have thought they were witness to the second coming.

“Hey, I hate to interrupt Larry King, but-”

“Sorry, Dad.” Sarah clicked off the tube.

Pete Vandervoort stood up and came over to me, shook my hand. I didn’t like the look in his eyes. “Something’s up,” he whispered.

“No shit?” I turned to Sarah. “Where’s your mom?”

“In bed.”

“In bed. It’s only-”

“Sarah, maybe you better give me and your dad a few minutes.”

“Sure, Sheriff Vandervoort. Thanks for coming and staying with us. Dad, I’ll be in the kitchen. You want something?”

“No, kiddo, that’s okay.”

“Sheriff?”

“No, thanks.” Vandervoort was careful to wait until Sarah was out of earshot. “We got a situation here that I don’t understand. You sure you told me everything about the details concerning your brother-in-law’s death?”

Of course not! “Yeah, why do you ask?”

“Come on outside a minute.”

Vandervoort and I stepped out onto the little concrete stoop in front of the house. Two moths prayed at the altar of the porch light, unable to break free from the bonds of their devotion. The sheriff took a lazy swat at the faithful and refocused.

“It’s not just about hearing voices anymore,” he said. “She’s seeing ghosts now too. That’s why Katy’s in bed. Took two of those pills the shrink at the hospital gave her.”

“She called you?”

“No. Your kid did. Sarah’s a beautiful girl… and smart. You should be proud of her.”

“I am.”

“Me and the wife don’t have kids. Can’t. We’ve been to every doctor in the county. Even went to see a few in the city. My family name dies with me.”

“Siblings?”

“Two big sisters.”

“How about adopting?”

“We’ve thought about it, but it’s not for us, I don’t think.”

“I’m sorry, but-”

“No, I’m sorry, Moe. I got sidetracked there. So your daughter phoned me a few hours ago. She said that they were in town shopping, having lunch and your wife started acting funny.”

“Funny?”

“Looking over her shoulder at odd times. Apparently, while they were at Molly’s having lunch, Katy practically jumped out of her seat and ran out of the diner. When she came back, she was white,” he said. “Your kid asked her what was the matter and she-”

“-wouldn’t say. That’s Katy. In most ways, she’s nothing like her dad, but she couldn’t escape him totally. She can hold stuff back sometimes. So what happened?”

“They stopped at the PrimeOil Station on the way back here. When Sarah was pumping the gas, your wife ran out of the car and darted across Stuyvesant Street. FedEx truck nearly cleaned her clock. She was pretty lucky, Moe. Took quite a spill. I guess when Sarah got her back here, Katy finally confided to her that she’d been seeing Patrick here and there all day long.”

“Jesus Christ!” My jaw clenched.

“There’s more to it.”

“More how?”

“Come over to my car a second,” he said, walking toward the Crown Vic. I followed. He reached into the front seat and came out holding a video tape. “The PrimeOil’s been robbed a few times since they expanded it from just a gas station to a convenience mart. They got surveillance cameras all over the place now, so I figured I’d stop by on my way over here.” He handed it to me. “Get it back to me when you’re done with it.”

“Is there something on it?”

“Wouldn’t’ve told you about it if there wasn’t.”

Without thinking, I started for the house. Vandervoort grabbed my arm.

“Not so fast. You better wait till they’re both asleep,” he said. “Maybe we should talk in the morning.”

The first part was a suggestion, the second part wasn’t.

“Okay, Pete, I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Until tomorrow then.” Vandervoort shook my hand and, like Connie before him, was slow in letting go. “Look, Moe, I like you and your family, but I’m going to need more from you than what I’ve gotten so far. Your wife isn’t the only one holding back. Somebody’s got to have it in for you and your family to go to this much trouble. That tape in your hand is a gesture of good faith on my part, so when you come by in the morning I hope you’re in a generous and sharing mood. Do we understand one another?”

“We do.”

He let go of my hand and said goodnight. I watched him pull away. Then I stashed the tape in the front seat of my car.

I made sure both Katy and Sarah were asleep before retrieving the cassette from my car. I watched the black and white surveillance tape over and over again. Apparently, the gas station had recorded and re- recorded over it a number of times. To say the images were muddy would be insulting to mud. Nonetheless, there was no mistaking Patrick. He knew he was on camera the whole time, giving a somber nod and salute when he came into the frame. He mouthed something that was beyond my abilities as a lip reader to decipher. The ghost wasn’t taking any chances if someone thought, as Pete Vandervoort had, to retrieve the video. He arranged energy bars on the counter to spell out:

SO ALONE

The people behind this were good, very thorough. They had done their prep work, but the prep work was a blade that cut two ways. Yes, it meant they could pull off this haunting crap with great aplomb. It also meant they had done their research, the kind of research you can’t do online or in libraries. That might be an opportunity for me. I rewound the tape and watched it again.

“There’s something wrong.”

I nearly had a heart attack. It was Sarah, standing in the dark of the hallway.

“How long have you been there?”

“Long enough. There’s something about that guy that’s just not right.”

“Like what?”

“I’m not sure,” she said, stepping into the living room. “I can’t put my finger on it, but give me time.”

“I don’t think it’s a ghost either, but it looks a lot like him.”

“I guess.”

“You’re not the best judge, Sarah. You’ve only ever seen pictures of him and those are mostly ones of him before he changed.”

“Changed?”

“Before he redid his hair, got the tattoo and the earring… Just before. There aren’t very many pictures of him like that.”

“Yeah, Dad, but you also only know him through pictures.” She knelt down by the screen and placed her right index finger on his face. “I’m telling you, something’s just not kosher with this guy.”

Sarah was right about one thing: I didn’t actually know Patrick any better than she did. We’d never met, not face to face. It was just that Patrick, a man who was never really there, had consumed such an unnatural amount of my life that I felt as if I did know him. I shut off the VCR.

“Go back to bed, kiddo.”

“I can’t sleep.”

“Me neither. Hey, you wanna go grab something at Molly’s?”

“Sure, Dad. Just let me throw some jeans on.”

“I’ll check on your mom.”

Katy, still fully dressed, didn’t stir when I came into the room. She seemed utterly zonked. We had shared the same bed for twenty years, but I wasn’t sure I recognized the woman before me. It can take a lifetime to become familiar and only seconds to become strangers again. I made to leave, but stopped. I removed the message tape from her answering machine, took one more look at Katy, then left.

I think I knew something was wrong even before I turned the car back onto Hanover Street. Sarah sensed it too. I could see it in her expression.

“Dad, what did you do with the security tape?”

“Oh, shit!”

Our worst fears were confirmed when we saw the flickering light through the otherwise opaque living room window. It was a bit of a blur from then on. I couldn’t remember putting the car in park or closing the car door behind me or putting the key in the front door lock. The first thing that stuck was the image of Katy laying face down in a sea of broken glass, blood oozing out of the gash on her forehead, the VCR remote clenched in her right fist.

“Dad! Dad!” Sarah was screaming. It didn’t register as screaming. Her panic reached me as a tiny voice at the end of a kid’s string and soup can telephone. “Dad, Mom took pills, lotsa pills.”

I think I said for her to grab the bottles. I was already carrying Katy to the car.