The Spite House(15)
They were the fourteenth such group to waste her time since she’d given Dana approval to place the ad. Given that there were more than forty of these groups in Texas alone, and how many Dana had already filtered out through phone interviews, she supposed she should count herself lucky. Each of them had spoken of temperature-fluctuation measurement and electromagnetic-field recorders, and other equipment that was part of the professional-ghost-hunting charade, as though they’d be the first ones to tell her about these things, even though they all said something to the effect of “I’m sure you’ve heard of this, but…” before going into their sell.
They were somewhat inoffensive considering their intent was to effectively cheat her out of money and time while boosting their careers. The money, she didn’t mind. If they stayed in the house, they would earn it whether they meant to or not. The house would not let them live there without them doing what they were paid to do. The question was whether the money would be enough of a compensation for what the house might do to them. Eunice’s previous tenants in the Masson House—Jane and Max Renner—could attest to that, presuming Max cared to ever resurface and Jane regained the ability to speak.
Although money was no concern, time was another matter. She couldn’t make more of that. She was in her early eighties, still sharp, still astute, and still susceptible, now and then, to certain indulgences, one of her favorites being calling someone out on a lie when she could easily let it go. She’d let thirteen other groups pass politely unchallenged in the last few days, so she had multiple, recent examples that proved she could resist if she really wanted to. Right now, she just didn’t want to.
“Hold on, dear,” Eunice said, raising a hand and silencing the tech kid just as he’d finished talking up his “high-grade infrared thermometers that can pick up and isolate any cold spots that are sort of like chemtrails for unseen spirits.”
She checked her smartwatch, which housed several components built in the factory she owned at the south end of town. She already knew the time from the large clock on the far wall. She was checking her pulse to confirm what she already suspected. Her heart rate was up a bit. Not nearly as high as it would be when she was warming up on her treadmill or taking a walk along the property’s trail, but still ten beats per minute higher than it should have been when she was sitting down. She suspected she’d heard the term “cold spots” one time too many to remain calm.
She glanced at Lafonda, who sat in a corner of the room. Lafonda gave her a small headshake that she had to have known wouldn’t dissuade her, and Eunice answered with a faint smile. Then she stood up, walked to the front of her desk, and leaned back on it.
“I must tell you all, I actually have a friend who used to host a show a bit like the ones you say you put on, although his was focused on the debunking side of things. Have any of you heard of Neal Lassiter before?”
“That jackass,” the bald man said.
“Did you not just hear me call him a friend?” Eunice said.
The bald man’s mouth slacked and skin blanched, and Eunice could see his thoughts working overtime to salvage this interview and the potential payday and exposure that came with it. “I-I’m sorry, that was inappropriate. I thought you meant it, like, sarcastically. Like you didn’t really like him. I didn’t mean any offense by it, really.”
Her stare told him how much of a fool he was to think he could presume she meant anything other than what she’d said, much less the opposite of what she’d said. In the back, Lafonda snickered, and Eunice had to clear her throat to keep from laughing in kind and lessening the gravity she’d just brought into the room.
“My friend Neal and I don’t see eye to eye on matters of the paranormal. He thinks I’m wasting my time. Nonetheless, he has agreed to come here as soon as I give him the call to tell him that I’m ready. That I’m sure I can prove something is in that house, because I brought in the right people—serious people—who have made me sure. Do you think you’re going to be the ones to do that, talking to me about the same things that I see in these silly little television shows that my friend Neal regularly eviscerates in two sentences or less?”
The others looked to the bald man, who shifted in his chair and started to answer before Eunice cut him off with, “That was rhetorical. You’ve had your chance, now I would like to speak. I don’t know how sincere you may be or not. I don’t know what any of you has or hasn’t experienced with regard to spirits. What I know is what I’ve experienced, and why it leads me to believe that most people who talk about ‘cold spots’ and the like probably haven’t been in the presence of the dead. Now I’ve just given you some time to share some things with me, you’ll do me the same courtesy, won’t you?”
The men hesitated to answer, no doubt wondering if this might be another rhetorical question, but Meredith spoke up and said, “Yes.”
“Thank you,” Eunice said. “When I was ten years old, I had a favorite aunt. Her name was Val. She was tall and wide and strong and loud. She seemed to me like someone out of a tall tale. My very own Paul Bunyan. Technically she was my cousin, my grandpa’s brother’s daughter. Some family members would correct me when I called her my aunt, but she was too old to me to be my cousin, and I minded her like an elder. Not that she was the fussy sort. She didn’t have to be. She’d ask or suggest, and I’d take it as an order. Whenever I was being stubborn with my mother, she’d only have to say, ‘What do you think Val would say about this?’ and that would be enough. I loved my mother, but Aunt Val was my hero.