“Claude?” she asked the empty room, eyeing the name for several more seconds. She’d heard it before.
And then it came to her.
The name “Claude” had been spoken by the woman who’d left a phone message for Weston Meeks. Bette had written down the woman’s name and the place where she lived, Sunny Angels.
Bette photocopied the article and examined the shelves. One wall contained yearbooks from the Marquette High School. She pulled the 1974 book down and searched the book for Greta Claude. Sure enough, she was listed as a junior.
She flipped to Greta’s photo and stared at the young woman. It was, without a doubt, Hillary Meeks. Her hair was cut short in a boyish style that barely went past her ears, but her piercing gray eyes were unmistakable.
34
Then
“Thanks, Rick. I’m digging the new t-shirt,” Crystal told the barista at Sacred Grounds.
He grinned and looked down at the shirt, which stated “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in red dripping letters.
“Thanks, Crys.” He handed her a cup of decaf coffee, arching an eyebrow. “Since when are you into decaf?”
She shrugged and took the cup. “Cutting back on stimulants. You know the drill.”
As she worked toward the door, a hand reached out and snatched the hem of her shirt.
“Hey girl,” the woman said, releasing her shirt and gesturing at her table.
It took Crystal a moment to remember her name.
“Greta!” she said, smiling. “How are you?”
Greta flitted her hands, gesturing at the stream of papers spread across the table.
“Busy like a wasp,” she muttered.
“I think the saying is like a bumblebee,” Crystal chuckled sipping her milk-heavy coffee.
“They’re too fuzzy for my tastes,” Greta retorted. “Sit and have a chat.” She pointed at the empty chair.
Crystal glanced at the door, tempted to offer an excuse. A book and a nap sounded infinitely more appealing, but Greta’s hopeful expression got the best of her.
“Sure okay.”
“Crystal!”
Crystal looked up to see Greta hurrying down the street toward her.
She held up Crystal’s wallet.
“You forgot it at the coffee shop,” she said.
Crystal slapped herself on the forehead. “Wow, thank you. I would have been screwed. My rent is in there.”
“Fancy an adventure?” Greta asked, eyes sparkling.
Crystal took her wallet and tucked it into her purse, puzzling at how it could have fallen out.
“Well, I’m curious, that’s for sure. I rarely say no to an adventure. What are we talking about?” Crystal asked, though her earlier desire to go home and crawl into bed had only heightened in the previous half hour.
It was the anniversary of her mother’s death. She was pregnant with the child of a man who was keeping secrets, and every time she looked in the mirror, she searched for the shadow of death she was sure hid somewhere behind her.
Weston had called several times, and she hadn’t answered or returned his calls. She wanted to tell Bette about the baby. She should have told her sister first.
That night, when they marked the anniversary of their mother’s death, Crystal planned to come clean about everything. Once she’d gotten Bette’s insight, she’d be more ready to face Weston.
“I’ve been hired to research old houses for an author,” Greta explained. “There’s an abandoned house out on old Highway 27. It’s tucked way back in the woods. No one has entered it in forty years, but I,” she held up a small silver object, “got a key.”
“Wow, really?” Crystal eyed the small key.
Bette and her father had more of a penchant for old houses, but Crystal couldn’t deny they held a certain allure. Plus, she wasn’t meeting Bette until five, which meant seven more hours of filling the time and thinking about Wes and the baby.
“Okay,” Crystal agreed. “But I have to meet my sister at five.”
“Not a problem,” Greta assured her. “I’m parked down the block. Why don’t you ride with me?”
A rusted gate plastered with “No Trespassing” signs barred their entrance to the weedy driveway. It was overgrown and sheltered by trees. From the road, you wouldn’t assume a house lay in the gloomy depths at all.
The old farmhouse was large, the windows not boarded but void of glass. Black holes in the bleached face of the monster. And look like a monster it did.
Moss coated the sagging roof. Trees, bushes and vines crowded around the crumbling structure, snaking through the empty windows. More vegetation swarmed across the porch.
Crystal shivered and wrapped her arms over her chest.
“Coming?” Greta asked, climbing out of the car and grabbing a camera bag from the backseat.
Greta took out her camera and started snapping pictures, walking around the exterior of the house and taking shots of the derelict structure.
Crystal took a final sip of the bottled water, Greta had given her, before she stepped from the car.
The quiet in the forest was thick. It coiled around Crystal, and a sense of menace rose through her feet as if it were a message from the poisonous ground beneath her.
“Poisonous?” she murmured, wondering where such a thought had originated.
The ground looked healthy; overgrown to be sure but, if anything, that signaled good health, not bad.
“Ready?” Greta asked.
She stood on the porch, her smile glowing in the shadow of the rotted eaves.
Crystal considered staying in the car, or rather walking out of there, following the wooded pathway from the house and waiting for Greta at the road.
The dread seemed baseless, foolish, but Crystal had always followed her instincts.
She stepped back toward the car.
Greta peeked inside the half-open door and gasped.
“You’ve got to see the stone hearth in this place. Unreal,” she called, disappearing through the doorway.
Crystal swallowed her fear and followed Greta into the house.
The stone hearth was grand, rising to the ceiling and built from huge boulders, pudding stones and Petoskeys.
“Wow,” Crystal breathed, walking to the fireplace and putting a hand on one of the Petoskey stones. "I’ve never seen one so big. Whose house was this?”
Greta took a picture and the flash illuminated black mold streaking up the walls.
“A psychiatrist at the Northern Michigan Asylum,” Greta said. “He’s dead and gone now, but apparently he lived here before he moved up north onto the asylum grounds. He never sold this place, and after he died it just sat…”
“He didn’t have children that wanted it?” Crystal wondered.
Greta’s face was pressed into the camera, but she pulled it away.
“They all died, right here, in fact. Murdered. Two daughters, a son, and his wife. Good old Ralph died at the asylum. He was nearly ninety when he passed, but a few of the doctors still went to him for advice.”
Crystal stared at Greta horror-struck.
“Who murdered them?”
Greta took a photograph of the black mold. It looked like billions of tiny spiders scurrying up the walls.
“Unsolved,” Greta said, and then laughed at Crystal’s expression. “I guess I should have mentioned that. This is research for a true crime writer. I’ve always been fascinated by old places, by the things that live in the rotted walls, the memories, the dark things.”