Selling Murder House

Chapter 4

When I left the shop, shaking with nerves, I found that my Uber driver had left. I cursed and waited for a new driver to arrive, lamenting at yet another Uber charge.

I had had financial struggles similar to this before. I was used to living paycheck to paycheck, so any kind of unexpected payment was a major upset. Not having a car was different though. It made everything more difficult and more expensive. Once I got my next paycheck, I told myself, everything would be fine.

But when I got home and checked my email, and saw yet another reminder from the Real Estate Association ("Schedule your exam today!"), I didn't immediately delete it. Was this the first step to a future where I wouldn't have to worry about late fees and overdraft charges? And if so, why was I so stubbornly against it?

I wasn't a salesman. I wasn't a schmoozer. I wasn't a witty host like Sofia or a smooth talking stunner like Stassi. It would be going against my nature, my identity, to sell out so hard like this. I was a designer, a dreamer, a creative, and one little financial mishap wasn't going to change that.

Winnie barked and I looked up from my phone. He was standing by the door, ready for his walk. I sighed, my body sinking heavily into the couch, which suddenly seemed more comfortable than ever before. Winnie and I had a staring contest, battling it out, until I finally worked up enough energy to stand. He did a little spin of joy, tail wagging, as I reached for his leash.

"You win this time, buddy," I said.

The sun was setting when we reached ground-level and made our way to the neighborhood. It was growing chillier by the day, and my trench coat was hardly enough to keep me warm. The coat smelled like the wine Lilian had served at the family dinner, smelled like Leo's hot breath.

Winnie was taking his time, sniffing every passing tree and streetlight, marking his territory lazily here and there. I found myself pulling him along, my body telling me to pick up the pace, to finish the walk before the sun went down. Maybe it was some leftover heebie-jeebies from the last time I'd walked there at night, but mostly it was a strong longing to be home, to take my pants off and crawl into bed. Unfortunately, dogs really didn't give two shits about that. I couldn't blame Winnie, really. I left him cooped up inside that tiny apartment way too often.

When we reached the side street that led to the Madsen House, I surprised both myself and Winnie by pivoting off the main road, toward the crime scene tape. I told myself I'd walk down the street and circle back around, then head straight home, that way it would be a shorter walk back, but deep down I knew I just wanted to get a closer look at the house. It was a win/win, really, since Winnie now had many more spots to mark.

Up close, the house was in an even sorrier state than I'd realized from a distance. The yellow facade was dirty, speckled with years of earth and dust, and the foliage surrounding the home was overgrown, yet somehow brown and shriveled-looking. It was like everything around the house had died, and the death was spreading. It was a spooky thought. Teens from my complex were going to have a ball with this place on Halloween in a couple weeks.

Would there be stories, I wondered, legends passed down generations, about the Madsen Murder House? I supposed that was what happened with tragedies, especially ones shrouded in mystery, and especially ones that happened in a neighborhood like this one. Maybe schoolchildren were already telling it, spinning it, turning an isolated incident into a phenomenon that could somehow come out and get you. Say Henry Madsen three times in a dark closet . . .

Then again, it was probably the adults, like the ones I'd overheard talking at the sunset showing, who were doing the most storytelling. Eva Madsen went to my church, and she was the kindest, warmest woman I'd ever met . . . and You know I always thought there was something wrong with that chap Henry, something just not right . . . People, children and adults alike, were really good at making any tragedy about themselves. I supposed I was doing that in my own way, lurking around the Madsen House, watching as the sun set behind its chimneys. Was it because we all felt some intense sadness within us, and struggled to understand what it was or why it was there? When tragedy struck near us, did we inch a little closer to it, hoping to feel its radius, hoping to gratify that sadness?

I thought about the other night, when I felt the fear of God when I saw that car, when I'd convinced myself I was being followed. Had there been some part of me that had wanted it to be true, had actually wanted someone to chase me, to catch me? At least then, the fear I felt would have been true. I laughed quietly to myself. As if some feelings could be considered "false."

I looked up at the still, dark house. As my mind wandered down this somewhat depressing rabbit hole, Winnie squatted to pee near a dead-looking tree, and I told myself I'd turn back and go home once he finished. It was full-dark now, and the side-street didn't have streetlamps. I heard a car in the distance and I jumped, then scolded myself for letting my mind go to dark places when I was out alone at night. It made me paranoid.

The car was coming up the main street, and I could see its headlights through the streets from where I stood. When it passed the intersection, the headlights lit up the street, and I saw a new shadow stretch across the lawn behind me. I jumped when Winnie growled, facing the shadow. It had only been visible for a split second in the flicker of headlights, but I made out two legs, stretched unnaturally long, arms crossing over its body, and a head topped with a baseball cap.

I jumped again when Winnie barked and tugged at the leash, hard enough for the handle to slip right out of my hand. I heard footsteps running and Winnie's tags jingling, an intermittent growl and bark, the plastic handle of the leash dragging against the ground. I followed the sound, shouting for Winnie, knowing my shouts would only make him run harder but panicking too much to stop.

The running footsteps had receded, so I followed the sounds of Winnie toward the main road. Up ahead, I caught a flicker of movement in the streetlight, a little black dot had appeared then disappeared again into the darkness. I ran harder when I heard a shrill cry of pain. The dragging sound had stopped.

There were tears streaming down my face when I found Winnie. His back leg had fallen through a slit in a storm drain, trapping him there. He shook wildly, and when I reached for him my hands were shaking almost as bad. I carefully lifted his little leg out of the drain, and saw the bone was clearly broken. He was whining, crying like a baby in my arms. Either that, or that pitiful whimpering was coming from me. I glanced around the street, expecting to see the shadow man, but he had disappeared back into the darkness. Still, when I had Winnie securely in my arms, I ran all the way home.

Back at my apartment, I called 9-1-1.

"9-1-1, what is your emergency?" the operator, a young-sounding man, asked.

"Uh hi," I said stupidly. "I think, um, someone's . . . following me?"

I said it like a question, which didn't seem to give the operator much faith in me.

"OK, ma'am, are you safe? Is the person there now?"

"Um, no, I was walking my dog in Saddlebrook and he must have ran off. I'm home now," I explained.

"OK, do you know who's following you? Do you have a name or a description?"

"Uh," I said, my face burning. "No, I don't know who it is. And I don't know what he looks like. Might've been wearing a baseball cap? I don't know."

The operator said, "Okay, ma'am, well it sounds like you're home safe. Unfortunately there isn't anything we can do to help without an ID or any proof of a crime."

A lightbulb went off in my head.

"My car!" I blurted. "I think he might've broken into my car, uh, last week."

"Was anything stolen?" the operator asked.

"Um," I felt stupid all over again. "No, not that I could find."

I hung up with the operator feeling like a complete fool. I hadn't really wanted to make the call, but I felt like it was warranted. My second time in just a few days that I had felt sure I was being watched, being followed. I thought calling for help was the right thing to do. I realized then that there wasn't anything anyone could do. Not until I got close enough to see him. Not until he got me.

Sometimes being right, I realized, is worse than being proven wrong. I put my head in my hands, letting the adrenaline turn my stomach sour. Had I really thought I'd wanted my fear to be gratified by a full-throttle run-in with an assailant?

Someone was following me. I knew that now, I had seen him. And the fear was worse, so much worse, than it was before.