The Mephistophelean House (5 page)

An unmarked cruiser pulled onto 45th. Two plainclothes detectives got out and cut through the easement, climbing the steps to the porch.

“Are you the one that called about the missing person?”

“Yes.”

“This is Detective Morris. I’m Detective Gamble.”

“I called about my roommate, Matthew Pierce. He got sick and disappeared.”

“What sort of illness?”

My forehead dripped.

I wiped my brow.

“I'm not sure.”

I kept seeing things out of the corner of my eye, deformities, anomalies, spots on the wall, things that hadn't been there before.

The detectives didn’t seem to notice.

“Are those your boots?”

Matthew's boots were on the floor, dripping with melting snow.

“Yes.”

“What are those?”

I looked at my boots.

“I changed.”

“Take us to his room.”

“What time did he disappear?”

“It would have been Saturday night.”

“Did you call his family?”

“I don’t know if he had any family. I mean, he never spoke of any. He never had anyone over.”

“We’ll take what information you have.”

“I have three numbers. One is the place he was living before.”

“Before?”

“We just moved in.”

“Oh?”

“The second is the number of the landlord. The third is his.”

Detective Morris accepted the numbers.

“Let’s see his room."

“It’s this way.”

I led the detectives upstairs.

The room was as I left it.

“In there,” I pointed.

The detectives put on gloves. Detective Gamble pointed to the sleeping porch.

“What's that?”

“It’s some kind of extra room.”

The detective opened the door and went inside.

“What is it Terry,” Detective Morris pulled a canister from a leather bag and sprayed the floor, chair, and wall.

Detective Gamble popped his head through the doorway.

“Did you notice anything strange or out of the ordinary? Other than this sickness?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Anything?”

“Negative.”

“Fingerprints?” I asked.

“Body residuals.”

“Ahh.”

“Where was the last place you saw him?”

“Probably the basement.”

I blenched.

Why had I said that?

“All right. Give me the details. What were you talking about?”

“He was building something, some kind of personal waste recycling system.”

“Was building? You talk about him as if he were dead.”

“Gone.”

“Do you have any reason to believe he’s deceased?”

“I don't know what to believe."

“Let’s see the basement.”

I unbolted the white door. The fan was on. The door to the windowless chamber was open.

“It’s damp down here.”

“Where did see him last?”

I pointed.

“Inside there?”

“Turn on the lights.”

“The lights are on.”

“Oh.”

“What is that?”

“It’s a dumbwaiter.”

Detective Gamble stared at the black X and pink circle. The other detective set his case on the ground and withdrew the canister, spraying the floor.

“It’s no use.”

I led the detectives upstairs.

Detective Gamble handed me a card.

“You can reach Detective Morris through this number.”

“Thank you.”

“Anything else you can tell us about him?”

“I hardly knew the guy.”

I stood in the Hawthorns, looking up at the Mephistophelean House. Although the detectives found no trace of Matthew, there was one place they hadn’t searched.

“Ogemtel."

I snatched the phone from my pocket and dialed the landlord’s number.

The line rang twice.

A recorded message played.

The line was disconnected.

Chapter 5

The Investigation

I know I am not mad, but now I am alone and It knows I am alone. The longer I stay, the less It bothers to hide. Even in the light of day I am perturbed by vague irrationalities, things I can't directly perceive, memories of things which never took place. I pretend not to notice It, but It knows I am pretending.

I don’t remember how I got to bed.

I woke up in the grim little room. Beads of water trickled from the awning, rain intermixed with snow. The ice was in full retreat.

The pigeons were gone.

Matthew’s door was ajar.

I went to the bathroom and splashed some water on my face.

My eyes were burning.

“My eyes…”

I looked in the mirror.

There was someone there.

A robe hung on a hook.

“Jeez.”

I went downstairs. The kitchen seemed different. Streaks mottled the linoleum floor, imperfections in the corbels and rope molding, pilasters and trim out of place, as if the entire House had been taken apart and put back together again.

I got a bag of coffee from the fridge. The coffeemaker percolated. I poured a cup. The milk mixed with the coffee.

“What the…”

A face appeared.

I blinked.

It was gone.

The kitchen elongated, the metal bowl on the counter, the scuffed refrigerator, the chipped enamel cooker, the gleaming white door, my elongated face in the reflection, something behind me, as tall as Death, reaching out.

“I’ve got to get out of here.”

There was a new sapling in the yard, one that had not been there the night before. I shuddered at the coincidence of Matthew’s disappearance, noticing a section of newly turned earth, large enough where another might lie.

Bus #14 roared up Hawthorne. Trustifarians in freeform locks unloaded Vanagons of second hand brands. GenX go-getters in heathered fleece sweaters avoided the hollas of signature gatherers. A stout bearded lady and brown basset hound brayed for ten dollar bills with a hat on the ground. A halcyon mural and bright coffee shop stood next to the Psychics and Trimet bus stop. A circle of writers sat down to a meeting so I queued in line while they interchanged greetings. I ordered a Depthcharge with white pumpkin crème and sat down by the steaming espresso machine.

A game of chess was played. A player broke his castle and the rook went unopposed. The other took the bait and left his knight and pawns exposed. I sat next to the root ball table Depthcharge in my hand, thinking of the Weeping Tree inside the forest of sand. The Depthcharge had been flavored with a cappuccino glaze, caffeinated chocolate candy corroding the haze.

“What happened to Matthew doesn't have to happen to me.”

I took out my phone and tapped the mic icon.

“Property history Multnomah County.”

I queried the address 1331 SE 45th, Portland Oregon in the search bar. The tax records registered two results, a property deed and pdf.

The deed was a type written document, notarized at the turn of the twentieth century, bearing an earlier date. It was signed by a Doctor Maximilian Kilgore.

“Doctor Kilgore?”

The pawn advanced, forking the bishop and rook.

The second link was a lien on the property at 1331 SE. 45th, dated 1917. 'Maximilian Kilgore, the grantee listed in the first section of the lien, having been secured by a private trust, stated as valuable consideration the property of 1331, SE 45th, to Roland Andrews.'

I stared at the touchscreen.

“The lien is a hundred years old.”

Maximilian Kilgore and Roland Andrews returned two million results. I sifted like an inept cleric in a decrepit repository, drinking my Depthcharge, stumbling across an abstract from an academic database of electronic articles with a reference to Doctor Maximilian Kilgore.

‘Of a considerably more questionable nature remain the endeavors of Doctor Maximilian Kilgore, 1856-1917, cofounder of the Oregon State Board of Eugenics. Little is recorded, despite having been the Superintendent of the House on Asylum Road for nine years, from 1908-1917, and a Representative of the Oregon State Legislature, from 1912-1917. Records point to Doctor Kilgore as the primary medical advisor guiding the creation of the Board of Eugenics in 1917. The Board, confirming a common practice of the era, empowered superintendents of mental institutions to sterilize inmates so that their inferior traits would not be passed onto resulting generations. Doctor Kilgore, it appears, sterilized with impunity such that he was reviled even by his own contemporaries. Of the 174 patients entrusted in his care only one escaped, and he, on appeal to the Oregon State Supreme Court. Doctor Kilgore disappeared in 1917. The House on Asylum Road was closed in 1920. All state mental institutions were consolidated into one central facility, the Oregon State Insane Asylum, in 1921.’

The property lien on the Mephistophelean House was dated 1917, the year the Doctor disappeared.

“The House on Asylum Road?”

The shop receded, people talking without speaking, echoes distant and unreal, potted plants with moving roots were cracking through the brushstone tile, spoons and forks, stalks and leaves, the wind blowing through the trees, a figure digging on their knees under the chilblained Hawthorns trees.

“A private trust…”

The delicious aroma of cinnamon pastry, coffee, and perfume, the clinking of glasses, music, voices, steam spouting from the espresso machine.

The pawn took the bishop.

I took a shot from the Depthcharge.

“Board Eugenics Maximilian Kilgore.”

The search produced a result from the Portland Public Library, an entry entitled ‘The Narcissus Effect.’ Under the subject line it listed ‘eugenics’ and 'The House on Asylum Road.’ The author was Doctor Maximilian Kilgore.

“The Narcissus Effect.”

I clicked the call number.

The book was in.

I looked at the clock.

The king was cornered in his castle.

Matthew’s keys were on the bureau. Wasting no time I fired the bio diesel and took Hawthorne downtown, the Willamette River leaking like brown paint under the steel truss of the Hawthorne Bridge. Neon signs lit up Main Street. I rolled uptown and found a spot on 10th, printed a ticket, and stickered the window.

A surreal hush permeated the Downtown Public Library. The wrought iron clock read 6:59. I climbed the Tennessee marble staircase to the second floor and looked up ‘The Narcissus Effect’ on a terminal. There was just enough time to deposit the call number at the desk before the library closed.

A warning flashed on the screen.

“Just a moment,” the librarian disappeared into the rook.

Columns with scrolls and acanthus leaves vaulted a field of arches. I looked at the portraits on the wall. A bell rang. Two security guards climbed the stairs. I looked at the clock.

It still read 6:59.

The librarian returned.

“Although this title is checked in, I can’t seem to lay my hands on it.”

“Lost?”

"Not lost. It’s here, somewhere, but just where, I couldn’t say.”

“Oh.”

“Let’s cross index the subjects and see what we can come up with.”

One by one the lights shut off. The portraits in the colonnade frothed blue and white, jagged mountain peaks, raging waterfalls, tiny figures braving the vast unforgiving panorama.

“What are you guys looking for?”

“Guys?”

The guards were heading downstairs.

“My mistake. What specifically were you looking for?”

“Eugenics, Doctor Maximilian Kilgore.”

“Just a moment. I’m noticing a common thread throughout the subject indices. The House on Asylum Road.”

“Yes. The House on Asylum Road. That’s it.”

“Just a moment. Carlin has that title in a collection. I’d go there if I were you.”

“All right.”

“But you can't.”

“Oh?”

“It’s a private college.”

“I see.”

“Hey, are you alright?”

“Why?”

“There's something wrong with your eyes.”

I heard somebody on the stairs and stopped to let them pass, but there was nobody there, the lights were off and it was black, yet every time I turned I heard footsteps behind my back, a presence treading in my wake no longer holding back, and though I tried ignoring the clock hanging on the wall, it seemed to me it looked a lot like Matthew's metal ball, the time that wrought the iron hands that broke the center line, a time I knew I need not see in order to divine.