“I’m useless,” said Hugh. “He’s made me useless. I can’t even take care of myself. . . . All I can do is write poetry. Simone says I would be of no use in the apocalypse.”
I almost laughed; it seemed like such a bizarre thing to say under the circumstances.
“Well heck, no one will be of much use in the apocalypse. I think that’s why it’s called an apocalypse. In the meantime, your poetry is worth a great deal, Hugh. You have the power to touch perfect strangers with your words. Don’t you understand how rare and precious that is? Don’t put it all at risk now—you can’t be Ray’s judge, jury, and executioner. No one has that right.”
“Judge, jury, and executioner . . .” Hugh repeated in that vague way of his, and stared off in the direction of the window. I got the impression he felt a poem coming on.
I pressed the muzzle of my gun into Ray’s back, just in case he thought I was getting distracted. But he really did appear to be a broken man; the fight seemed to have drained out of him.
“Hugh, call 911, will you? And Ray, walk very, very slowly down the stairs.”
“Yes, right.” Hugh patted himself down, looking for a cell phone.
“Let’s go, Ray. Walk slowly down the stairs, one step at a time. No sudden moves, you understand?”
It happened so fast I couldn’t stop it. I would never know whether Ray’s bad knee gave out or if he purposefully threw himself down the stairs. But down he went.
He tumbled down with a series of violent grunts and thumps until he landed at the base of the stairs, right where the tile had been taken up. Exactly where he had killed Jean Lawrence, on the spot where he stood over her body while he looked back up at young Linda at the top of the stairs.
Ray landed on his back.
His eyes grew huge, and he reached above himself.
Then he started screaming.
I watched, horrified, as bluish figures surrounded him, one, two, three—and then a fourth joined in. They hovered over him, rose up in the air, and came back down as if performing a dance of death. The ghosts of Murder House, come to escort their killer to the next world?
Ray’s screams cut off with a sudden gurgle, and then he stopped breathing. His eyes remained open and fixed in an expression of sheer terror.
Chapter Twenty-five
A week later I was working in the Murder House, starving and caffeine-deprived, but I couldn’t stop thinking of that last scene at the bottom of the stairs.
The final autopsy report stated Ray died of a coronary obstruction: a heart attack, in laymen’s terms. I guessed when it came right down to it, it was the best outcome for everyone concerned. I wasn’t sure how Hugh would have fared through the long slog of a trial.
Somehow, the atrocities Ray had committed were made so much more terrible by his allowing Hugh and Linda to blame their father all these years. That he could have looked into their young, innocent faces and led them to think they were children of a monster . . . but there was no sense in going over this anymore.
Hugh was seeing a psychiatrist on a daily basis, and Simone told me he was coming to grips with everything that had happened, now that the truth was finally known. I was happy that at the very least he had reconciled with the memory of his father. When I stopped by their apartment earlier in the week, several family portraits hung on his walls, images of a happier time, quarter of a century ago, before death came a-knocking.
Hugh had decided to sell the house on Greenbrier Street after all. But first, he wanted to have it redone, renovated, and decorated in the style it deserved, Art Nouveau. And luckily, he happened to know a top-notch contractor who was perfect for the job. We had sold or given away all the usable furniture, clothing, and linens—much of which was snapped up by vintage shops—and now my demo crew was ripping up shag carpet, removing outdated appliances, and steaming off several layers of flowered and flocked wallpaper. It was deeply satisfying to see the vestiges of that terrible crime disappearing room by room.
Following the aftermath of Ray’s shocking dive down the stairs, there appeared to be no lingering ghostly presence in the house. No more pale faces in the windows, no more whistling in the shed. As far as I could tell, the spirits were quiet or had departed entirely. According to Olivier, a traumatic event connected to the death might silence spirits for a time, but they could return. So far, however, the demo work was going well, with nary a bump in the night or the day.
Or . . . maybe not. I jumped when I heard a loud sound.
Bam bam bam . . . bam!
I moved gingerly toward the front door, and looked out the peephole. Nothing. But as I swung the door wide, I could see it was Kobe, too short to be seen from the peephole.