Baltimore Noir (23 page)

Now Jeannie understood why seven people had owned the house in ten years. Nobody could stand to keep living with the sound of German-American bowlers, night after night. Ivanhoe had dreamt about the boy in the bib again. He wanted to sleep in their room, which Charlie sternly forbade. Adding to the stress in the house, Charlie’s sexual appetite had increased—something Jeannie felt sure was connected to his witnessing Hodder touch her at the gala.

Jeannie’s men were exhausting her. If she wasn’t servicing Charlie at night, she was spending extra hours at nursery school because Ivanhoe had started to have separation anxiety. During the afternoons, when he was home, he tucked himself into the cabinet next to the stove, hugging himself while Jeannie cooked massive starchy meals she hoped would send everyone to sleep after bed.

In the few hours she had to herself, Jeannie read: three books about the paranormal and a history of Maryland furniture makers that mentioned the decline of Erdmann & Sons due to the death of the heir apparent, Martin Erdmann, after a bout of tuberculosis. The only surviving siblings were girls; and girls, in those days, did not become furniture builders.

Jeannie thought things over during the night, when she would customarily make one trip downstairs to check for the rolling sound, which seemed to be happening sometimes, but sometimes not. After too many sleepless nights, she finally opened her copy of the
Blue Book
and discovered the phone number for Hortense Underwood, who was not listed in the regular telephone directory. When she said she needed to talk, Hortense promptly invited her to come for a visit to Edgevale Road with Ivan.

“I’ll come when he’s in school,” Jeannie said. She was trying to help him forget what had happened in his room, not engrain it any further on his troubled mind. “I do have one favor to ask, if it isn’t too much trouble. Do you still have photo albums and school yearbooks, anything with pictures of the Erdmanns? I’m interested in Martin Erdmann, in particular.”

There was a long pause. “Martin was a few classes ahead of me at school, but there’s a chance. I’ll see what I can find for you.”

Over strong cups of Eddie’s Breakfast Blend served in bone-thin Limoge cups, Jeannie and Hortense examined an ancient, falling-apart literary anthology of student work. There was no yearbook per se, but mixed in with childish poetry were a few cloudy black-and-white photographs of boys and girls lined up on a step, wearing sailor suits.

“This is my class,” Hortense said, pointing to a small girl with braids, who looked into the camera with a slightly accusatory gaze. “And yours truly. The girl on the far end is Agatha Erdmann.”

“You said Martin was a few years older?” Jeannie stared at Agatha, as if her appearance might spark some recognition.

“Yes. I thought there might be photos of him here, but … he must have already died. It was very sad.” Hortense shook her head.

“What did he look like? Can you remember?”

“Red hair, freckles, skinny. Oh, and I guess the thing I remember is how the Erdmanns dressed. They were always dressed like diplomatic children, even at a neighborhood public school.”

“Do you mean in fancy clothes?” Jeannie pictured a Fauntleroy suit, the kind of costume Charlie had suggested Ivanhoe wear for the family portrait.

“No, I mean a sailor suit, like Agatha’s wearing in the photograph. The children always wore sailor suits, had to wear them well into their teens, much to their chagrin.”

A sailor suit. What Ivan had talked about—a boy with a bib—sounded like it could have been a boy wearing a sailor suit. A chill settled over Jeannie, and she told Hortense she hadn’t realized how time had flown, that it was time to get Ivanhoe from St. David’s and take him home for lunch. Lunch, followed by a pre-nap story, which, for that afternoon, she chose Babar, the Elephant Emperor whose children all wore sailor suits. And as Jeannie had expected, when Ivan saw the illustration of Pom, Flora, and Alexander, he squealed and pointed, “That one like boy at night-night time!”

Jeannie had no more questions.

That night, she told Charlie she’d be waiting for him in the bedroom after he put Ivanhoe to sleep. Charlie did the bedtime routine in record time—thirty-five minutes—and was halfway undressed by the time he got in the room.

“So, you must be feeling better today,” he said happily, grabbing her around her hips and pressing her tightly against him. “What did you do, get some advice on how to relax from that wonderful woman of a certain age?”

“Actually, Charlie, I brought up some of the whiskey.” She removed his hands from her body, then pointed to the cut-glass decanter she’d set on the table by the window. “I think we could both use a drink, because there’s something serious I have to discuss.”

She told him everything. About the sailor suit, the bowling sounds, the long gone household of German-American children shunned by the neighborhood. He listened carefully, and to her amazement, his first words were, “It’s incredible. But believable.”

“I don’t believe in haunted houses,” Jeannie said, surprised that there was no fight. “I never did, and I don’t
wan
to. But something’s going on. No wonder all the young families buy and quickly leave, and Hodder Reeves keeps on reselling the house.”

“You keep calling Hodder.” Charlie sipped the whiskey, keeping his eyes on her.

“What do you mean?” Jeannie flushed.

“I saw the record of your outgoing cell phone calls.”

“It’s because—it’s because I’m trying to find out about the house! I’ve called him repeatedly this week, but he hasn’t gotten back to me. In the meantime, I’ve researched more about the family that owned the house.” Jeannie told Charlie what she’d learned from Hortense Underwood and saw the jealousy in his eyes slowly replaced by a look she remembered from long ago—the dreaming, about-to-imagine-a-brilliant-idea look.

“It’s creepy all right,” Charlie said slowly. “If we tweaked the story a little, it’d make a great computer game, maybe one that involves learning the German language.”

“Charlie! Is everything a game to you?” Jeannie was distracted, because she could hear Ivanhoe whimpering in his sleep.

“No, it’s not,” Charlie said sharply. “And don’t go to him. If you keep running to Ivanhoe, he’ll never sleep through the night.”

“I don’t know what to do.” Jeannie put her face in her hands, hiding her tears.

“Do you think we should do what the others have done—just cut our losses and run?”

“Our gains,” Jeannie said. “Hodder said we’ll make at least ten percent profit if we sell. But how can we sell a haunted house?”

“Others have done it,” Charlie said. “And before we make any big decisions, let’s see if anything else happens. The best games have their roots in reality. Let’s learn the untold story of this boy in a sailor suit.”

“And how do you propose we do that?”

Charlie thought a moment, then said, “Let’s hold a séance. See if you can line up that neighborhood woman and Hodder Reeves. And I’ll bring in our new games concept guy, Walter, to record the whole thing.”

A séance! Jeannie felt she was living in
The Twilight Zone.
Charlie left work early the next morning, but not before telling her he expected her to bring him at least three estimates by the end of the week. Jeannie gritted her teeth and agreed. If anything, a psychic hack would buoy her case for getting out.

There weren’t many psychics left in the new Baltimore, but Jeannie did find a listing in the phone book that wasn’t too far away, for a Sister Natalie’s House of Spirits, located on Reisterstown Road near Northern Parkway. Sister Natalie was just the psychic Charlie deserved. Sister Natalie, with her hands decked in heavy rings, her head covered in a zebrapatterned turban, and wearing a mumu, was exactly the stereotype of a woman who communicated with other worlds. And the things she asked of Jeannie—background on everything that had happened so far in the house, four hours to set up before the séance, undisturbed, and a $600 deposit to cover expenses—made Jeannie certain the whole thing was going to be an utter fraud. But that was okay. Jeannie wanted no chance of the sailor-suited boy actually materializing. Let Sister Natalie go off on her own tangent, giving Charlie the kind of glamorous ghosts he needed.

Jeannie spent a good hour with the psychic, telling her everything she could think of relating to the house and its history. Suddenly she realized it was 11:30, and she was going to have to race over to St. David’s to pick up Ivan. She wrote out the deposit check and handed it to Sister Natalie.

As their hands touched, Sister Natalie drew back sharply. The check fluttered to the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Jeannie said automatically, and bent to pick it up. Sister Natalie appeared frozen when Jeannie tried to give her the check again.

“Is everything okay?” Jeannie could barely hide her impatience. “I made it out to the name you told me, Natalie Black—”

“Your family is in danger,” Sister Natalie said, her voice leaden.

“What?”

“Your family is in danger. We were talking about the house before, but there’s something else you need to worry about—something very serious—”

Aha! Angling for a return engagement,
Jeannie thought. An extra consultation—extra money. “I’m really sorry, Sister, but I am going to have
major
worries if I don’t pick up my son from school on time. I’ll see you this Friday, okay? Call me if you need directions.”

As Jeannie’s Humvee joined a stalled line of vehicles a quarter-mile prior to her turnoff from Northern to Roland Avenue, she felt her anxiety quicken. If only she could see ahead to whether or not it was an accident. Blocking her line of vision was a truck: a big white one with red lettering on the back that said, “
REEVES ENTERTAINMENT. FOLLOW ME TO MARYLAND’S GREATEST PARTIES AND MAGIC SHOWS!”

Five minutes later, when she’d managed to make the right turn and proceed toward Ivan’s school, she turned over the connection in her mind. Hodder had mentioned that his father’s family owned a large party services company. She’d thought that the company dealt solely in tents and chairs and champagne fountains. But obviously there was something more.

There was a message blinking on the answering machine when Jeannie returned home with Ivan in tow.

It’s Hodder,
” the voice on the recording said.
“I was in Dewey and Rehoboth for a couple of weeks getting a jump on my spring listings, but I just returned this morning. Glad you want to get together! Can we do lunch?”

Had he heard, somehow, from Sister Natalie about the upcoming séance? As Jeannie was deliberating what to do, the phone rang. She listened to it ring, and when her answering machine picked up, she heard Hodder speak into the machine.

“Jeannie? You there?”

Jeannie picked up the phone. “I’m here.”

“Hey, did you hear my message about lunch? I called both your cell and the home, but nobody picked up.”

“Actually, Charlie and I want to invite you to join us at home Friday evening.” She had to force herself to sound normal.

“Ooh, dinner in my favorite house on Goodwood Gardens, with my favorite clients. It just so happens I am free. Let me bring some wine—would you prefer red or white?”

“Neither. It’s not exactly a dinner party, it’s a kind of—games night. There will be a couple of other people there. Could you come at 8, after Ivan’s in bed?”

“I’ll knock very quietly,” Hodder said in a low purr. “And how did you know I love games—grown-up games, especially?”

The séance was going to be a nightmare, Jeannie thought, as she spread out the skirts of her black silk taffeta gown so they wouldn’t crease while she sat reading Ivanhoe his favorite Dr. Seuss stories, even after his eyes had closed. Ivan’s tiny little hand was tucked in hers, making her sweat in the room that was already too hot. Sister Natalie had insisted on raising the temperature in the house, rather than dropping it, as if to prove how genuine her psychic feats would be.

Finally, Ivan’s hand relaxed in Jeannie’s and she carefully disengaged herself and arranged his coverings lightly over him. He was already covered in a faint sheen of perspiration, so she cracked open the window across the room.

Ivanhoe’s bedroom door was slightly ajar, and she could hear voices below. Hortense Underwood had come early, of course, and she was talking with Charlie about something, until a knock came at the door. It was Hodder, who after listening to Charlie’s booming description of the evening’s agenda, exclaimed loudly about what a great surprise the séance was. Jeannie suspected this was one instance where Hodder was genuinely surprised, and not up to his usual tricks.

It had been just a few hours earlier, when late afternoon sunshine had flooded Ivanhoe’s room, and the two of them had been putting away his laundry in the closet, when she’d found the trick: the quarter-inch nail hole in the closet door. She’d seen something flash in it, and realized, under closer inspection, that there was a very thin lens embedded in the hole that reflected its presence clearly under the glow of a flashlight.

“Ivan,” she’d asked gently, “that boy with the bib you see. Where does he stand when you see him?”

Ivanhoe pointed at a spot on the wall directly across from the closet door. “Over there.”

So the show took place after dark. When the hologram, or whatever it was, would show up most frighteningly. Hodder wouldn’t even need to be in the house to pull off the stunt; he could use a remote control, like people used for their cars, and like Hodder had done when he’d illustrated the features of the house’s state of the art security system.

Grimly, Jeannie took care of the hole in the quickest way she could—stuffing toilet paper into it. Then she’d taken Ivan with her down to the basement, where, using an icing spatula, she pried up a dozen floorboards before finding the tape recorder. She’d removed the microcassette to play on the living room stereo. Sure enough, the sounds of a bowling alley, but with added clarity from the high-quality speaker system.

She was angry; blindingly angry. Her rage seemed uncontainable, rushing out in a great wave she wished would sweep over the person who had decided to intentionally frighten her little boy, had turned him into a child who was scared of the dark and hid in kitchen cupboards. And as Ivan’s mother, it was her duty to make the amoral monster pay.