The Spite House(75)

Regardless, she helped him find obituaries and records that confirmed Masson’s second burial, as well as the fact that his first wasn’t undone. However, she said that there weren’t any records about the passing of Masson’s niece and nephew, much less their funerals.

“That’s always been one of the things about that house,” the librarian said. “One day those kids were just up and gone. They probably ran away. I remember my poppa having some stranger theories about it, but he grew up in that orphanage around older kids who swore they knew the real truth, so who knows?”

“What was the ‘real truth’?” Eric said.

“Oh, nothing for you to worry about. Old nonsense.” She dodged eye contact and touched the back of her neck like she thought a fly was crawling on her. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”

“How sorry would you be if something happened to me or my kids because you were too scared to tell me the truth?” Eric said. “Or is all the hospitality and concern around here just a show? None of you really care, do you? It’s just me and my girls in that house on our own. Can’t even get a simple, honest answer out of the kindly local librarian. How do you think that makes me feel as a father? I’ll go ahead and tell you. It makes me really fucking anxious. It makes me think the people here, smiling in my face and telling me not to worry when they know damn well that there’s plenty for me to worry about, are setting me up. And if it was just me, I wouldn’t mind so much. But you and everyone else here knows that I’ve got my children with me.”

He leaned forward, almost halfway across the desk, dropped a fist onto it. Not quite a punch, but a strong enough knock to make the librarian flinch. “To tell you the ‘real truth,’ right now I’m so anxious I feel like I should do something to show people how seriously I take my daughters’ safety.”

In the brief silence that followed, he replayed in his mind what he had said. The words meant less to him than the voice that spoke them. He hadn’t done an impression of his grandfather’s voice, he had channeled it.

The librarian stammered, then glanced around and noticed what Eric already had. They were alone in the library. Someone else might show up at any second, but that could be a second too late if he were to come across the desk, menace her because she wouldn’t talk. Then make good on his veiled threat whether she talked or not.

He wouldn’t do that, of course, but she didn’t know that. All she knew was that he was Eunice’s guest, which meant she probably couldn’t even kick him out of the library or say she’d call the cops without getting the old woman’s permission first. She was more powerless than him from every angle, and they both knew it. This didn’t make him feel any better. This wasn’t like when he took over the conversation with Emily Steen. In fact it made him a little sick, but it was practical and proactive. He didn’t expect her to start suddenly giving up Degener secrets, but she would go home and dwell on this interaction. Maybe tell her husband about it, but probably not even that, because if he told anyone else then it might get back to Eunice, who wouldn’t take her side regardless of what she heard about this exchange, because the town librarian had immeasurably less value to Eunice than Eric did.

Next time they talked, he might push things a little further. Tell her that either he could let Eunice know that the lady down at the library had hinted at a “real truth”—see how the queen of the town responded to that news—or he could keep it all to himself if she would just tell him what that real truth was.

For now, he backed away from the desk and said, “Anyway, thanks for your help today.”

“Y-you’re welcome,” she said, as though fighting a program that commanded her to say it.



* * *



Eric gripped the steering wheel like he meant to tear it off. His dread of returning to the house brought this on, but also his frustration and embarrassment with being so afraid. What he’d done at the library was a small start. Practice, really. He’d been far too reactive to everything to this point. Even to Stacy’s death. He was never going to get a real grip on this situation until he did more to get ahead of it, and he couldn’t start doing that until he had a better grasp of what Eunice fully expected of him before she paid him.

Had he uncovered even half enough proof of the haunting to satisfy the terms of their agreement? He knew the full name and story of the man who built the house. Knew Masson went to war, died, came back, died again, was buried twice. How much more would she want to know to consider his work done? Did she need the specifics about the niece and the nephew? Would that be enough? They hadn’t laid any of that out. He hadn’t pushed hard enough for answers—even when they met and talked by the memorial—because he didn’t think things would move this fast. He had been prepared to go sleepless, to be disturbed, but not to pass out and walk through a dead man’s past. Not to feel like he was coming apart, never to be whole again. The way the librarian initially looked at him and spoke to him let Eric know it wasn’t just in his head. He looked as ill as he felt.

It was savvy on Eunice’s part, he had to admit. Letting him commit to finishing the job without pointing out where the finish line was. She could drag this out if she wanted, keep him working for a per diem that was still better than a month’s pay under the table at some construction site. And then there was the payday awaiting him if he saw this all the way through, the kind of money that could let them buy land, buy some much-needed privacy. The kind of money that could buy Stacy a new life, set her and Dess up for the rest of their days. Eunice could withhold that ransom for months if she saw fit.