Stacey rolls her eyes and turns back to Jules, gesturing for her to go on.
“Where was I? The murders . . . no one heard a thing . . . Oh, right! It was stormy that night. There’s nothing louder than rain on these flat roofs. You’ll see tomorrow. The weather’s going to be lousy.”
“Terrific,” Dad mutters.
“Yeah, you’re not in LA anymore, but don’t worry, you’ll get used to it,” Heather says. “I did.”
“Oh, please.” Jules shakes her head. “You’re always complaining about the weather, California girl.”
“Only when it’s crappy. Does anyone need more wine?” Heather pours some for herself, and tops off the other glasses without waiting for a reply.
Stacey needs the rest of the murder story. “So the murder was never solved?”
“Nope. Like I said, the family kept to themselves, so there wasn’t a lot to go on. They probably wouldn’t have been found for days, but one of the neighbors happened to look out her window in the middle of the night and I guess she saw someone breaking in. She called the police, but by the time they got there, it was too late. The Toskas were dead and the killer was long gone.”
“What did he look like?” Piper asks.
“My mom said the neighbor just saw a shadowy figure. Couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman. Like I said, people on the block assumed it was a contract killing, but—”
“More wine?” Heather cuts in, lifting the bottle again.
“You just poured it.”
“I know.” She and Jules exchange a look, and Stacey realizes Heather’s interruption was meant to curtail the story.
“What were you going to say, Jules?” she persists. “People thought it was a contract killing, but . . . But, what?”
Jules hesitates. “Just . . . you know, hit men don’t typically take out the wives and children.”
There’s a moment of silence.
Stacey clears her throat. “Then who do you think did it?”
This time, Mom cuts in, and the voice that spills from her throat could belong to an overly cheerful pageant finalist trying to answer a tough question. “It doesn’t really matter, does it? Who cares what happened years ago?”
“I do. It happened in our house.”
“Every house has a history, Stacey.”
“Yeah, not a triple homicide, Mom.”
Their eyes meet.
Stacey sees an unfamiliar expression in her mother’s, stark and troubling.
Is it . . . fear?
Mom, always so self-assured, looks away, into the shadows beyond the flickering candlelight.
This time, when Heather speaks up to change the subject, no one stops her.
Nora
Back at 104 Glover, the climate-controlled house is cool and dry, lamplit and tidy.
Nora takes a long shower, washing the sticky sweat from her skin and the smell of charcoal and citronella from her hair. It’s impossible to scrub away the evening’s unpleasant ending. The water is steamy and the shampoo jasmine-scented, miring her in the warm, humid garden, hearing those awful words.
Three people were killed in our house . . .
Someone knocks on the bathroom door.
“Mom? I need to get in there.”
Stacey.
“Can’t you go downstairs?”
“My stuff is up here.”
“Okay. I’ll be right out,” she calls, turning off the spray with a weary sigh.
Wrapped in a towel, she digs through the countertop disorder for her La Prairie night cream. Besides Keith’s collection of vitamins and homeopathic remedies, there are too many toiletries and cosmetics, hairbrushes and hair products, two bottles of contact lens solution and cases, her own and Stacey’s.
Four people, one full bathroom, and no storage or countertop in the tiny half bath tucked under the stairs.
How had she thought that wouldn’t be an issue?
Other people do it. Families all over the city, crammed into small spaces. The Howells have a whole house. This house, a murder house.
She slathers night cream over her face and brushes her teeth, the unpleasant aftertaste of garlic and alcohol lingering along with traces of conversation.
Three people were killed in our house . . .
In their beds . . .
The killer was never found . . .
She pulls a nightgown over her damp head and emerges from the bathroom. Stacey’s door is ajar and she’s speaking quietly. Is she reading aloud? Talking to herself?
Poking her head in, Nora is surprised to see both her daughters bent over Stacey’s open laptop.
Piper is wearing shorty pajamas and orthodontic retainers. “But which room?” she asks her sister in a low voice. “Mine or yours?”
“Probably this one, because it’s bigger and she was the only—” Stacey breaks off, spotting Nora.
“What’s going on, girls?”
“Stacey found this thing online about the murders.”
Of course she did, even though Nora and Keith had advised the girls on the short walk back not to dwell on their new home’s macabre history.
She sighs and leans in toward the screen. “Let’s see.”
It’s an article from a newspaper archive. The headline reads HEINOUS TRIPLE HOMICIDE and is accompanied by a photo with the caption Doomed couple in happier times: their wedding day.
Stanley Toska is swarthy with a mustache and intense dark eyes beneath bushy brows. His bride, Lena, wears a white skirt suit with oversize shoulder pads, and she’s smiling beneath a dark cloud of big hair and spackled-on makeup that was all the rage in the ’80s.
Nora scans the article, details jumping out at her.
. . . January 17, 1994 . . .
. . . 104 Glover Street in Brooklyn . . .
. . . daughter, Anna . . .
“Creepy, right?”
She looks up to see Piper waiting for her reaction. Stacey is now focused on her phone, typing something.
“It was a long time ago. Long before you two were born.”
“Looks like it was my room.” Stacey shows Piper her phone. “See? This article says the victims were found in adjacent bedrooms. Yours isn’t adjacent to the master.”
“Oh, good. I mean, good for me. Not for you, Stace. Sorry.”
“What are you talking about?” Nora asks, though she has a good idea.
“We were wondering which bedroom was the girl’s,” Piper says, “because I can’t sleep in a room where someone died.”
“Yeah, and I’m pretty sure there’s a law that you have to inform people about something like this before they decide to move in,” Stacey adds.
“I don’t know about that. The rental agent didn’t say anything to us.”
“But how could you and Dad not think it was weird that this place has been empty for twenty-five years?”
“We didn’t know. She said it was a brand-new listing, and I think she mentioned that the owner lives abroad.”
“Well, Courtney said no one’s ever met the owner, so even he has obviously never even lived here.”
“And Lennon said no one has since the murders, because it’s haunted,” Piper puts in.
“Girls. This house is not haunted.”
“Lennon and Courtney said it is.”
“Lennon and Courtney are wrong. There’s no such thing as—”
“The murderer got away, Mom. What if he comes back?”
“Piper . . .” Nora shakes her head and presses her hands into her aching shoulders as weariness descends like a weighted blanket.