The Murder House Read online

  “Okay,” I say, now that we’ve gotten a peek at the hunky owner of this place, I’ve dispensed my advice, and I’ve had some of the best seafood I’ve ever eaten. “Now it’s time to ruin my appetite.”

  “It will,” she says. “It definitely will.”

  50

  “OKAY, HERE.” Ricketts removes a piece of paper from her file folder. “Eight victims over the last decade. All unsolved.”

  “I know about the ones last year, summer of 2011,” I say. “Zach and Melanie, Bonnie Stamos, my uncle. Let’s start with the older ones, before I came here.”

  “Good,” she says. “That’s what I did.”

  “Dede Paris,” I say, reading the first name. “Last seen May 9, 2007.”

  “The first two go together,” says Ricketts. “Dede Paris and Annie Church. Yale sophomores. May ninth was when they left New Haven that summer. They lied to their friends and family about how they were spending their summer. They came here to the Hamptons. That was discovered later, through cell phone records and then their car, which was ultimately found in Montauk after a lengthy search.”

  She removes two photos from her file folder and hands them to me. “Dede is the blonde, Annie the brunette.”

  Dede’s photograph is from a volleyball game. She’s tall and athletic, with blond hair cropped tight against her head. The photo of Annie is a school photo, probably from high school, a bright smile and warm eyes, her hair past her shoulders, reddish brown.

  “So they were killed in Montauk?” I ask.

  Ricketts shrugs. “Nobody knows. That’s where their car was found. Their bodies were never found. Or, I should say, most of their bodies was never found.”

  I look at the document she typed, organized and professional. “Her finger,” I say, reading her one-line summary for Dede.

  “Yeah, they found one of Dede’s fingers in the woods near Montauk, two years after they disappeared. We always assumed foul play but didn’t know it until somebody’s dog found the finger. Then they got a DNA match.”

  So they were killed in 2007, and a single finger was found in 2009. Two years, and nobody found it. Well, that’s possible, sure, but…

  “Tell me about the finger,” I say. “Was it decomposed? Was there anything distinctive about it?”

  “No and yes.” She opens her folder again and shows me a photograph of the finger. “Not decomposed much at all, well preserved, with a ring on it—a class ring from…Santa Monica High School, if I’m reading that right.”

  “Okay,” I say, handing her back the photo. She slides it into her folder. “So after that, we have the third one…Brittany Halsted,” I say. “July 2008.”

  “Prostitute,” says Ricketts. She hands me another photo. A mug shot. Oh, she’s young, not more than eighteen or nineteen in this photo. She is thin, blond, attractive but with a beat-up look about her that most working girls have.

  “She used the name Barbie on the street,” says Ricketts. “Last seen alive getting on the back of a motorcycle outside a nightclub in Shirley. She told her friends she was going to be gone for the night.”

  The whole night. Smart of him. Nobody would be expecting her back. It would give the offender some time before anyone would be looking for her.

  “Last seen alive,” I say. “So they found her.”

  “They found Brittany.” She hands me another photograph. “A couple of miles down Sunrise Highway from where she was picked up on the motorcycle.”

  She is lying facedown in a bed of leaves, her head turned toward the camera, her eyes shut. She has the ghostly mannequin look of a corpse dead for at least a couple of days. A pool of blood surrounds the lower half of her body.

  “This photo doesn’t show it,” says Ricketts. “But he carved her up. He disemboweled her. The ME thought he used a corkscrew.”

  “Oh, God, a corkscrew?” I say, as if there were a nice way of disemboweling someone.

  I look at the remainder of the sheet. “So then, in 2010, we have Sally Pfiester. And then we move up to 2011, to Melanie and Zach, Bonnie Stamos, and my uncle. That’s interesting.”

  “Why’s that interesting?”

  I look at Ricketts, who is watching me carefully. She’s a pup, looking to learn a thing or two, so I explain my thoughts. “We don’t know if this is the same offender,” I say. “But if it is, look at the timing. He kills in 2007. Then, in 2008, he kills again. Then he doesn’t kill again until 2010, with Sally Pfiester.”

  “So—what does that mean? He didn’t do anything in 2009.”

  “Well, he did do something in 2009,” I correct. “He planted Dede Paris’s finger for us to find. Clearly, he’d preserved that finger, or it would have been badly decomposed. And just in case we had trouble identifying it, he made sure her high school class ring was on it. He might as well have posted a sign saying, ‘Look, everyone, this is Dede’s finger!’”

  “He wanted us to know,” she says. “Why?” Ricketts sits quietly, her eyes moving around the room, her mental machinery fully in gear.

  “He was struggling,” I say. “He didn’t want to kill anybody else. But you know what else was bothering him?”

  “What?”

  “He wasn’t getting any attention,” I say.

  She draws back. “Attention? You think he wants to get caught?”

  “Oh, no. This guy does not want to get caught. Quite the opposite—this guy gets off on the thrill of getting away with it. Of doing something so terrible and walking away scot-free. I’m sure the stories about Annie and Dede were all over the South Shore papers in 2007. Two Yale undergrads gone missing? It was probably huge news on the South Shore. And the murder of the prostitute in 2008? Well, not as big, but still a gruesome murder, right? So once again, he’s getting attention, he’s reminded of how powerful he is. Big, newsworthy crimes, crimes that he committed, and he’s reading about them in his bathrobe with a cup of coffee.”

  “But his conscience was bothering him,” she says.

  “Right.” I point to her. “So in 2009, he’s struggling. He doesn’t want to kill again. But he needs the adulation, the feeling of power. So what does he do?”

  “He reminds everyone of what he did in 2007.”

  “Exactly. He plants Dede’s finger with the class ring, and voilà! There were probably a ton of stories, all over again, this time assuming the Yale students are dead, how tragic, how horrible, how mystified the police are—”

  “And how powerful he is.”

  “How powerful and impressive he is.” I sweep a hand. “He gets the thrill of it without the bloodshed or the risk.”

  “That’s fascinating,” she says, leaning her head on one hand. “How your mind works.”

  I wave it off. “I could be all wrong. Might not even be the same person.”

  Her eyebrow rises slightly. “Well, it makes sense to me. Especially when you see what he did to Sally Pfiester in 2010.”

  Book IV

  The Hamptons, 2010

  51

  HE IS cold, though the sun beats down on him at this beach café, the temperature nearing ninety degrees.

  He has to piss, though he just went twenty minutes ago.

  His stomach churns like rusty grinding gears, though he’s just eaten.

  He sees her through his sunglasses, basking in the white-bright sunlight, a bronzed, lithe body, the backpack over both shoulders, a white tank top and denim shorts, sunglasses perched atop her white-blond hair, as she takes a photo of herself on her smartphone with the Atlantic Ocean in the background.

  He watched her. Watched her as she ate at this very café—vegetables and hummus, a glass of Chardonnay—and texted on her smartphone, and told the waitress what she’s doing this summer, and got a recommendation for a good beach to “crash on” tonight. She and the server even talked music briefly—she likes the modern pop stuff but prefers classical, cello music mostly, of course Yo-Yo Ma and du Pré but also a newer crop, like Alisa Weilerstein, whoever that is.

  He
likes the name Alisa. It would be cool to have a girlfriend named Alisa.

  He wrote down everything she said. The beach where she will sleep, her musical preferences. And this, too: Sally. She told the waitress her name was Sally.

  Not quite as exciting a name as Alisa.

  He reaches for the check the waitress has left and notices the tremble in his hand. His fingernails chewed down to the point of bloodiness. He shouldn’t chew his nails. He knows that. His mother would say it makes him look “unrefined.”

  But he’s got lots of…refinement. Is that a word? He’ll look it up later.

  He feels the pressure building in his bladder, a dam on the verge of bursting.

  Sally is exiting the beach now, walking up onto the asphalt parking lot, her hands gripping the shoulder straps of the backpack. The muscles in her legs straining, well defined. Her arms are hard, too—long thin slivers of muscle.

  But his favorite part is the backpack. It means she’s passing through. Not a native. A loner.

  No friend or spouse or lover expecting her home tonight.

  Holden is smart. Maybe not school-smart. But he isn’t dumb.

  And he knows his history well:

  A peasant, any peasant will do, and better still a stranger;

  Whosoever shall not be missed is welcome in my chamber.

  He walks over to his motorcycle and throws on his helmet but keeps the shield up. Climbs onto the bike. Looks over at Sally as she passes. Nods to her.

  Too nervous to speak, though. And probably best that he doesn’t. His voice might shake. He’s still a little nervous. A little rusty.

  He drives off, lets time pass, the sun disappearing in a burst of color to the west.

  He uses his secret entrance into 7 Ocean Drive, the one specially for him. The one he used when Annie and Dede were staying there. The one he uses when he wants to sleep there himself, which he does from time to time.

  It’s his house, after all. Even if nobody else knows it.

  Once he’s inside, down in the basement, he drops his Fun Bag and gets to work. He lays down the tarp, tests the chain’s connection to the ceiling, locks and unlocks the handcuffs.

  Tonight he’s going to feast on duck and pheasant, on grapes and cheese.

  And then he’s going to find the girl named Sally and bring her back to the chamber.

  52

  SALLY PFIESTER stretches her legs in the cushy sand and rests her head against her soft pack, the water crashing to the shore only ten yards away. She looks up into a purple sky and lets out a satisfied breath. This is just what she needed, this summer. After a soul-killing desk job for two years and a ridiculous decision to accept that marriage proposal, she was starting down a road from which she would not be able to turn aside. Oh, he was a nice enough guy, and he had a terrific smile, a good sense of humor, but he didn’t ignite that pilot light inside her.

  Isn’t life supposed to be exciting? Aren’t you supposed to love, not merely tolerate, your job? Aren’t you supposed to commit to a man not because it’s “time,” or because you want kids, or because he’d be a good provider—but because he makes your heart go pitter-pat?

  Of course. Yes to all of that. It seems so obvious now. It didn’t when she was stuck in that rut, like a hamster on a wheel. But once she opened her eyes and broke off the engagement, quit her shitty job and gathered up her savings for a year of travel, it revealed itself to her so clearly. She wants to explore. She wants to meet people and experience new things. She wants a man who’s adventurous, nonjudgmental, not materialistic. She wants a man who is patient and at ease with himself. She wants a man who transports her to a world she’s never known. Or fuck it, she’ll do without a man altogether.

  The decision to travel alone—deemed by her mother insane, by her envious friends awesome—was the best she could have made. She’s only nine weeks in thus far, traveling the beaches of Long Island this summer by foot before heading to the West Coast and then Europe, but she’s learned so much about herself, about what she wants and needs and expects from life.

  And damn, all this walking has restored her triathlon physique from two years ago. She feels like herself again.

  She’s reaching for her smartphone—because solitude has its limits; she still posts regularly on Facebook and texts with her friends—when she sees something out of the corner of her eye, a figure emerging from the ocean in a wet suit, the glow of moonlight on him. She’s a night swimmer, too, but it’s a bit chilly this evening, so she took a pass.

  The man trudges up the beach in her general direction, but then stops. For the first time, she notices that he’s staked out a spot on the beach just like her, about twenty yards to her left. There aren’t that many people sleeping on the beach tonight, but then again, she chose this remote beach for that very reason.

  A light comes on by the man’s spot—a flashlight? No, a battery-charged lantern—and he seems to be settling in for the night. She watches him for a time and then returns her gaze to the sky.

  Sometimes she likes company and seeks it out, hangs out at bonfires, shares a bottle of wine or a joint, but other nights, like this, she prefers the quiet of her own company. It’s her choice. That’s the best part. It’s her decision entirely.

  And then: Faint at first, and then her hearing adjusts to it, over the sound of rolling waves—music. The soft whine, the dramatic upward lilt to the impossibly high notes, so sweet and despairing.

  Cello music, she thinks. He’s listening to cello music.

  53

  HE CAN see why Sally likes this music. It’s really good. It can be really loud and it can be really quiet, really fast and really slow. It can be violent. It can be chaotic. And it can be like a lullaby, almost. It makes him feel happy and sad within the same song—except they don’t call it a song, they call it a concerto. He already knew that. He knew they were called concertos before he looked up the cello stuff this afternoon.

  This music can do one other thing, too, at least tonight: It can get Sally’s attention, up the beach a ways.

  “Excuse me.”

  He pretends to be startled at Sally’s voice. It’s actually not that hard to pretend, because he’s nervous, anyway. So it kinda works double like that.

  “Sorry to bother you. Is this—is this Weilerstein?”

  “Oh, um…is the music too…too loud?”

  “No, not at all—”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, I love this music. You’re a fan?”

  “Yeah.” He shrugs. “I don’t know much about it. I just…like it.”

  See, he planned this out. He knew that if he pretended like he knew all sorts of stuff about the cello, she’d ask him questions he couldn’t answer. That’s an example that he’s maybe not so smart in school, but smart in planning stuff.

  She laughs. “That’s all you need to know. People get so caught up in all the pretentious bullshit.”

  “Yeah. It’s just so…” He leans forward. “Like you feel happy and sad at the same time, kinda.”

  “I totally know what you mean. It can be so emotional, right?”

  He can hardly see Sally’s face as she stands over him, but he can smell her. Fruit. She smells like fruit.

  “I have…wine,” he says. “If you…”

  “Yeah, I mean…if that’s cool.”

  “Okay, yeah.” Still nervous. But that’s okay, because it makes him seem harmless to her.

  She sits down next to him on the blanket he’s laid out, next to the Fun Bag with the wine bottle sticking out.

  Through the speaker on his iPod, the cellist bursts out of a lull with a crisp flourish.

  Holden pours some wine into a plastic glass and hands it to Sally. “It’s not…fancy or anything,” he says.

  “No, that’s cool, whatever.”

  He hopes she doesn’t notice his fingernails, all chewed up. But it’s dark.

  They listen to the music. The smell of the ocean, the gentle rush of the waves, the berry scent o
f Sally’s shampoo…

  “Now, this is paradise,” Sally says. “I mean, what’s better than listening to music like this with the waves crashing out here, the stars in the sky, and a glass of wine?”

  The wind kicks up, plays with Sally’s hair. She has on a sweatshirt, but her legs are bare. He considers offering her a blanket—but better to stay low-key.

  One concerto ends, Sally making a comment about the fluidity of the cellist’s bow strokes, and before long she has drained her glass. That should be enough.

  “I’m Sally, by the way.”

  “Holden,” he says.

  She looks over at him. “That’s a nice name. Unique. Like The Catch—oh. Oh, wow.” She puts her hand on her chest, sits upright.

  A new concerto. The cellist hits a climax early on, joined by other strings and some percussion.

  “I think…I think something…” Sally lets out a low moan.

  He lifts his face to the sky, feels the gentle breeze. “I think…it’s time,” he says.

  “I—I feel funny.” Sally lets out a moan. She tries to push herself up, but it’s like the signals aren’t reaching her limbs. She can’t make her arms or legs work.

  “I finally…get it,” he says. Warmth spreads through him, like a cup of hot cocoa.

  There is a monster inside me. It can sleep for days, for months. But it will never go away.

  “Help…help me.” Sally turns to him, her face tight with fear, her eyes searching his. He watches her face closely, the trembling lips, the wide eyes, the flaring nostrils, pure horror. So pure. So real.

  She’s losing her motor functions. She can’t move her arms or legs anymore. She’ll have trouble speaking, too. But she can still breathe.