Part 37 (1/2)
She had a decision to make. And so she made it.
No one reads the fine print in the escrow paperwork, she thought. There are so many pages to sign at a closing that no one reads them. The buyers just initial and sign.
She figured that since there were no such things as ghosts, there would be no problems, and therefore, no consequences if she kept her mouth shut. The wife loved the house, and she needed the sale. It would be a win/win situation.
Amber opened one of the many boxes that littered the kitchen floor of her new house.
It was taking her all day to unpack. Her husband wasn't any help since he was away on a business trip. It seemed that just as soon as they closed escrow and moved in, Kevin had to leave again on business.
In fact, that was one of the reasons they bought a home. Kevin felt that Amber needed something to take her mind off the fact that she was alone a lot of the time while he traveled. He told her that if they bought a house, she could decorate it any way she wanted.
Amber had been thrilled. There was only one thing she wanted more than a house, and that was a baby. Kevin had told her they weren't ready for that kind of responsibility, but Amber figured that since they had bought a new house, it would make sense to fill it with a baby. She felt that with time, she could talk Kevin into it.
Certainly they had the s.p.a.ce now, and she loved this house; for some reason, when she had looked at it with the realtor, it had spoken to her...whispering promises.
The new house wasn't exactly new, having been built in 1960. Still, it was a three bedroom, two bath, ranch-style tract home that had over 1,500 square feet. That was a lot of s.p.a.ce for only two people. A baby could fill the s.p.a.ce.
And so Amber unpacked by herself in her new home. She hadn't had time to look for a job in this new town, and reveled in the idea that at least for a while, she could live a life of luxury by not having to go to work. Of course, once they started paying the mortgage, she would need to find a part time job.
But on this day, she wasn't going to worry about it. She was going to unpack a few things and begin nesting; preparing for the baby that she knew would arrive. She wanted a boy, how she hoped she and Kevin would have a son.
She glanced at a window, and couldn't believe it when she saw it was raining. How could it be raining? The weather had been so beautiful just the day before.
It rarely rained during May in Sacramento, but on that Friday it rained all day. The dark sky seemed to dampen Amber's mood, and her high spirits changed to anxiety.
Because of the rain, night came faster, throwing its ebony blanket over the town to change it from a place of friendly openness into a place of menacing shadows. Amber found herself wis.h.i.+ng that Kevin were home. Earlier, Amber had been enjoying her new house, but now that it was night, she found herself nervous to be there alone.
She had nothing to do. She didn't have cable hooked up yet, and there was no antenna, so she couldn't watch television. She tried to read a book, but all she had was a murder mystery and reading that would make her even more nervous. She didn't want to unpack any more, because she had been doing that most of the day and now she was sick of it.
Amber found herself walking around, wandering from room to room. She held her cell phone in her hand, trying to resist the urge to call Kevin. Outside, the storm was at full force now, raging in its fury. Lightning flashed and thunder soon followed; the sound rumbled and growled throughout the house.
It made her feel better to turn on every single light. The kitchen, bathrooms, and dining room all had ceiling lights, but the living room and the bedrooms did not. Amber was glad she had thought to unpack lamps earlier in the day; now she plugged them in and turned them all on.
In one of the empty guest bedrooms, the lamp was s.h.i.+ning its light at an angle upon the wall. Something about the wall didn't seem quite right. She put her cell phone on the floor to free her hands for the lamp. Amber picked up the lamp and moved it a bit, trying different angles to s.h.i.+ne upon the wall. It looked like some sort of bulge was pus.h.i.+ng out about halfway up the wall.
She wondered why she had not seen it when the realtor had shown her the house. Maybe the room had looked different in the daylight.
Great, Amber thought, do we have structural problems already?
She put down the lamp and walked over to the wall, running her hands over it. There was definitely a bulge in the wall. It was all b.u.mpy and uneven. And now that she was close to it, she could see that it looked as though someone had done a makes.h.i.+ft repair job; probably there had been a hole in the wall and someone had haphazardly patched it and painted over it.
It was a very bad patch job.
Amber had heard of people stuffing newspapers into holes in the wall so that they could have something to spread the s.p.a.ckle upon. She didn't like the idea of it; she didn't want paper inside her wall because it could be a fire hazard.
Would it hurt if Amber punched out the plaster in that spot to look inside the wall? After all, wouldn't Kevin want to do the same thing, since the patch job had been done so poorly? Either way, the hole in the wall would have to be done over and patched correctly, so there would be no harm in opening it up now. Hadn't Kevin given her free rein with the house? Besides, she had nothing else to do.
She went into the kitchen and grabbed a knife. Returning to the guest bedroom, Amber punched the wall with the knife. She was not surprised when the knife went through the patch job very easily and that she could hear rustling on the other side.
So she had been right: newspaper.
She fumbled at the wall, but managed to begin tearing away at the plaster. She used the knife to create openings and then pulled the makes.h.i.+ft s.p.a.ckle patch job out. The s.p.a.ckle crumbled, falling into little pieces upon the floor.
The hole opened up. Amber reached inside and started pulling pages of rumpled newspapers out. Finally when she had them all removed from the wall, she decided to sit down and take a look at them. The date on the newspapers would tell her how long ago the wall had been patched.
She picked up one of the newspaper pages and un-wadded it. It was yellowed, so she figured it must have been in the wall for a while. She placed the page on the floor and tried to smooth out the wrinkles with her hands.
When it was free of most of its wrinkles, she picked it up again and looked to the top of the page for the date. It said: The Sacramento Bee, Sunday, May 8, 1988.
How ironic that that paper was dated the same month in which she found it. She skimmed the page and saw advertis.e.m.e.nts that proclaimed it was not too late to buy a Mother's Day gift.
So May eighth must have been Mother's Day in 1988, she thought. Maybe it's an omen.
She started reading the paper, glad that it wasn't the Sunday funny pages. Her eyes stopped on an article. She read: A 23-year-old woman was arrested last night on murder charges in connection with the death of her son, according to a police report.
Sacramento paramedics responded about 7:30 PM to a 911 call about an unresponsive five-year-old child in a home on the 1900 block of Rats! Amber thought. The page was torn, so the rest of the article was missing.
Then she remembered how she had believed that finding a newspaper dated on Mother's Day had been an omen. She shuddered, and instinctively reached for her belly, even though there was no child inside.
She connected the article to her own address, which was 1924 Henley Way. Too bad the article had been torn before the name of the street could be given.
There are lots of streets in Sacramento that have 1900 blocks, she thought. It could be any house on any street between the addresses of 1900 and 1999.
Still, it made it even creepier to be reading about a murder at night while she was in an unfamiliar house with a thunderstorm raging outside. The effect of the bad weather was apocalyptic to her mood, and she had feelings of melancholy and paranoia. She decided to start a fire in the fireplace, using the old newspaper pages as fuel. It would add more light in the house. Plus, she was feeling cold.
Grabbing the old newspaper pages, she wadded them all up in her hand, wrinkling them again. She took them into the family room, placed them into the fireplace, and picked up the book of matches that she had placed on the mantle earlier.
Amber crouched to touch the flaming match to the newspapers when suddenly the back door blew inwards, blowing out the match. She screamed in frightened surprise.
The rain gushed into the room, and the wind howled with a furious aggression. Running toward the door, Amber pushed to try to slam it shut, and was astonished at the resistance of the door. Was the wind really that strong? She shoved even more forcefully, using all of her strength, and finally she managed to close the back door.
After locking it tightly, she stared at it, trembling and fearful. Hadn't she locked it earlier? Of course she had, hadn't she? Why couldn't she remember?
Then came the thought: If I didn't lock the back door, then maybe I didn't lock the front door or any of the windows, either.
She would have to make the rounds all through the house to double check all of the locks.
She took a step forward to start making sure everything was safe when suddenly the front doorbell rang. She glanced at her watch. It was 10:15 PM. Who in the world would be ringing the doorbell at this late hour? And who would venture out on such a stormy night?
The doorbell rang again. Startled again by the sound, she felt frozen. She waited a few minutes, then took a deep breath.
Slowly Amber walked to the front door, listening to her own footsteps thudding dully upon the hardwood floor of the entranceway. She tried to peer through the peephole, but she couldn't see out to the porch very well. She was not about to open the door unless she was sure whoever was there posed no danger.
Amber next turned to the window by the door. Slowly and carefully she pulled a corner of the curtain aside, and peeked out. Rain was running in rivulets down the windowpane, blurring the gla.s.s, and making visibility close to impossible.
She waited a few minutes, immobile with indecisiveness. Finally turning back to the door once more, Amber called, ”Who is it?”
No answer.
”I'm not going to open the door unless you tell me who you are first.”