Stillwell: A Haunting on Long Island (4 page)

“Don’t start that stuff with me, Molly
. I have enough with Stella.”

She
rolled right next to him and whispered, “What? Has Stella seen something? You must tell me.”

“Nothing
. Imagination. I don’t want to talk about it. I gotta get to work.”

He worked right through lunch, cold calling, every so often a frigid pit of
hopelessness settled in his stomach. Acid jumped to the back of his throat reminding him to take antacids. This was a new thing. He had never suffered from indigestion. Allison’s illness had brought him a lasting present, chronic acid reflux. Standing, he tried to relieve the pressure under his breastbone. The back of his throat burned, and he chomped on Tums like they were candy. He knew that he was speaking to people, wrote their info, but as soon as he hung up the receiver, he couldn’t remember what he had said. He looked at his computer screen, knowing nothing was registering. It was like the grief hung over him as a constant reminder. His chest hurt with the ache of a lifetime. He remembered when they lowered the casket. His heart had shattered, breaking into tiny shards of glass, and a great emptiness enveloped him. Every time he envisioned the mental picture of her last days, he clenched his eyes shut, opening them gradually, hoping nobody else saw his agony. He didn’t know how long he sat there, staring at nothing.

His work phone lit up and he read his sister’s name on the computer screen.

“Hi, Lee, what’s up?”

“What the hell, Paul
! Is your cell on?”

He looked all over his desk and couldn’t find it
. Reaching behind, he felt it in his jacket pocket. “I must have forgot to turn it on this morning.”

“Dad and Mom are going nuts
. They’ve been trying to reach you. The school called them because they couldn’t get you. Jesse’s in the principal’s office.”

“Shit.”

“You have to go. I have to make up hours. I’m sorry, but I can’t go for you. Mom and Dad had to go for the consult on the cataract surgery. They’ve put it off too long.”

“I know,” he said as he slipped on his jacket.
“I’m sorry. I’ll go get him.”

====

The middle school was in the next town. Just next to the high school, it was ranked number two in the nation for education behind some school in Westchester. The standards were high, especially since 99 percent of the kids that graduated went to college. The teachers and faculty meant business.

After a lengthy talk with the dean, he went into the principal’s office. While Jesse sat sullenly outside, they decided that he had to finish the day.

“We are so terribly sorry about Mrs. Russo. She was a wonderful lady,” the principal said. She was very professional, her salt-and-pepper hair in a neat bob. She had on thick, trendy glasses that were oddly smudged with grease.

Paul cleared his throat but couldn’t take his fascinated gaze off the incongruous
, filthy eyeglasses. How could she look so professional and incompetent at the same time? He resisted the urge to grab the glasses and wipe them on the tail of his shirt. She spoke, but all he focused on was the cloudy lenses.

“It is natural for Jesse to be acting out, but he was too disruptive in class and his English teacher asked for us to deal with him.”

“What? Oh yes, I understand. I will talk to him tonight.”

“Mr. Russo
…” She paused leaning forward. Paul recoiled automatically, moving backward still caught in the cloudy stare. “We’d like to suggest grief counseling for the twins.”

Heat rose from
his neck to his face. It was hard enough dealing with the kids, but now the system wanted them to see a shrink. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“A grief counselor will help them cope
,” she told him gently. She wrote down a number on a piece of paper and handed it to him. “Stacey Friedman has done a great job with many of the children in our community who have suffered losses. Make an appointment, Mr. Russo. It will do them a world of good.”

“The kid
s’ mom died last week. They need time. It’s barely a week,” he repeated. This woman clearly couldn’t see straight out of her lenses. “I need time to see what the best thing is for them.” He thought about Allison, her love, her strength. “I will help them cope.”

“I have a note here from Veronica’s social studies and gym teachers
. Naturally, we understand they were going through a terrible ordeal with the illness, but now that…well, you understand, the children’s mental health is our utmost concern.”

Paul didn’t want to fight the principal. This was only the second time he was meeting her
. The other time he was out one night at a local steakhouse with Allison and she was there dining with her significant other. Allison introduced them and he didn’t remember her first name. Aside from that, if she didn’t know the difference between clean and dirty spectacles, what made her such an expert on his children?

“I will see to it this week,”
he responded. He had a strong family that never reached out for help. Always close, they had weathered many storms together. His parents, Allison’s parents were rocks. Even-keeled. How would he explain this to them? Would they think he was not up to helping his own children? Psychology was not in their DNA. Another problem landed squarely on his shoulders, weighing them down.

On the way out, he crouched and touched his son’s chin
, pushing him to make eye contact. “You OK?”

“Great
.” Jesse looked away.

“What do you want me to do?” Paul asked him.

“You can’t do anything. Are we done?”

“They said you can go back to class
. I’ll see you at four.”

Jesse walked away without a reply, leaving Paul stand
ing alone in the empty hallway.

====

It was just before two, and Paul knew he had to be home for Stella’s bus. There was no time to stop at the library, so he swung the car onto Route 25A and headed for the Stillwell estate. Route 25A was a state highway on Long Island. It served as the main east-west route for most of the North Shore, running for seventy-three miles from the Midtown Tunnel to Calverton in Suffolk County.

The route was known for its scenic path through decidedly lesser-developed areas such as Brookville, Fort Salonga, Centerport, and the Roslyn Viaduct. It
was known by various names along its routing, the most prominent of which included Northern Boulevard.

He wanted to walk the grounds before he met with Melissa tomorrow
. He felt outside his body, as if he was moving in slow motion. He knew that he drove but didn’t feel the passage of time. Still on autopilot, he was in a strange, suspended kind of state where things happened by rote. They got done, but he just couldn’t recall how. He reached out to the seat next to him and caressed the worn leather. It was Allison’s seat. His soul mate. She would know what to do with Jesse. His hand met empty air and closed into a tight fist. “Get your shit together, Paul,” he told himself. Hesitantly, he turned on the radio and felt a sense of relief when he heard Elton John singing  “Yellow Brick Road.”

He pulled into the overgrown driveway surrounded by tall pine trees, just off the main road
. Huge old gates that had rusted over years ago and were left open guarded Stillwell. Paul remembered they never closed them; they were broken at a wild party in the last century, by ancestors of the current owners that lived in the house. He had researched today on the Internet, learning the house was built by a prosperous farmer during the 1700s. This landowner was the first Andrews to arrive here from England. Craig had an attic filled with clothing belonging to different eras. Paul loved a Revolutionary War drum they had found there. Craig had made a wedding present of it and gave it to Paul and Allison when they married. He treasured it, and although it was buried under paper in his office, he liked to clean it off and bang on it with the children.

The house had a sorrowful reputation
. Nothing tangible, just an overall aura of sadness that was often the subject of newspaper articles. He couldn’t recall any of the stories, only that there was something sad associated with the house. As if that wasn’t enough, now it could add a murder-suicide to its history, just for atmosphere, he thought ruefully.

At the end of a two
-mile gravel driveway, the house stood proudly, surrounded by ancient trees that were lush with the beginning of fall colors. It was a two-story colonial, seventeen bedrooms, he recalled, and with seven or eight bathrooms. Maybe more. There were parts of the house he had never seen. There was a ballroom and a servants’ wing. It was locked up. A lone band of ripped yellow police tape floated on the crisp early fall air; it was attached to one of the wrought-iron railings. The word “caution” on the police tape waved on the breeze as if beckoning him to enter. He had no key, so he parked the car on the top of the gravel driveway and walked through the dense overgrowth toward the back terrace. He’d have to tell Melissa to have a gardener clean it up. It was silent there. He couldn’t hear any traffic from the main road, only the gentle chirping of birds and the trees swaying. There was a wall of French doors. It was beautiful. He knew the ballroom was here. A lone dove called gently for her mate, breaking the silence. Overhead two Canadian geese honked loudly, flying low. He recalled that they mated for life and found a well of jealously rearing its ugly head. He had mated for life. What do they do when one partner is taken away?

The terr
ace red bricks were broken and sprouting weeds poked through. Walking slowly, he peeked through one of the many panes of wavy glass at the light blue ballroom. Counting three Schonbek chandeliers, he calculated their worth, whistling softly.

He passed the big room and re
alized it was the family’s library. Still packed with books, it would be a nice touch for the open house. A roaring fire would really help when he did the showing. Pictures hung on green, blasé walls; overall, there was a feeling of faded wealth. Here and there were empty spots on the wall where he supposed Craig and his brothers took a family memento or portrait.

He sat abruptly on the first step, tears welling in his eyes
. The bleakness of his life stretched before him as anger surged through his veins like hot lava. “You left me alone,” he choked to the empty yard. “I don’t want to do this,” he whispered, feeling so small, adrift, and unhappy. His thoughts wandered to his kids again, and an overwhelming feeling of helplessness surrounded him.

Sighing, he wiped his cheeks
, ashamed of the tears and surprised he had this incredible supply of them, and ambled over to the last set of French doors. The bedroom. The master bedroom. It was the crime scene; he had read the report on his computer. He saw the dusty outline of the grand furniture and wondered how well they were able to clean it. He rubbed a small circle in the glass, pressed his eye, and blinked.

“Oh my God!” Bile rose to burn his throat when he saw the carnage inside
. Guts and gore splattered the room. Streaks of blood and holes from the shotgun pellets peppered the white walls. Bits of brain and decaying flesh decomposed on the floor.

A chair was overturned, its brocade drenched with stains of violence
. The carpet was black with dried blood. A lone slipper, a pink thing doused in blood, lay abandoned by its wearer on the floor. Reeling away, he wondered if Melissa knew it hadn’t been cleaned yet.

H
e started to run and fell into the bushes vomiting what little he had in his stomach. How was he going to look at that room with Melissa tomorrow? Stumbling to his car, he knocked over a planter with a dead bush. His breathing sounded harsh in his ears; he fumbled for his phone and dialed Melissa, his fingers shaking. It rang four or five times before she answered.

“Melissa
?” His voice sounded strange to his own ears. “Have you been to the house?”

“Paul
? Are you OK? Why?”

“I thought you said they cleaned it up.”

“They did, Paul. I inspected it yesterday. It’s all good, I promise.”

“Um...you sure?” He blinked hard.

“Yes. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Nothing. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He dropped the phone in his pocket and sat in the car, stunned. Putting the keys into the ignition, he thought to drive away but stopped. He got out and warily went into the yard again. Wanting another look, now that he calmed his beating heart, he saw the small circle he’d cleared on the window earlier. Tentatively, his heart started pounding again as he approached the doors. Stupefied, he peered in and saw a stripped bed, wooden floors, and pristine walls. He shook his head then left quickly, wondering what the hell had just happened to him.

====

“I don’t want it.” Veronica’s rotisserie chicken lay torn to small bits on her plate. Jesse at least had eaten his chicken but nothing else. Stella noted that everything on the plate was beige or yellowish. The kids bickered, fighting over everything from who got the drumsticks to who was using their personal utensil in the mac and cheese.

“It’s full of your spit!” Veronica lashed out at her twin.

“No, it’s not!” Jesse yelled back. Silver eyes glared at silver eyes, and Paul watched incredulously as Jesse prepared to hock a hunk of saliva into the mac and cheese.