CHAPTER 32 - Rita

CHAPTER 32RitaTHE HOUSE IS PRETTY COOL. I CAN PICTURE TEDDY ROOSEVELT OR Ernest Hemingway walking through the front door with a dead animal draped over his shoulders. Not that I’m a fan of hunting. I’m not. But the place is interesting and rustic posh. I can see Hemingway sitting on the deck, notebook in one hand, bottle in the other.Mrs. Bradley has been pretty shaky, her voice coming out in nervous bursts as she walked us through the rooms and pointed out where everyone slept. I don’t know if the nerves are the result of her husband’s murder, which is understandable, or if it’s her nature. But there’s something about her, something deeper that makes me think there’s more going on, a latent hysteria that lives just under the surface of this woman.I’ve drawn a floor map and labeled each bedroom with its occupants. I want to take a closer look at the attic without the Mrs. and her entourage over my shoulder, so I sent them downstairs. As we reach the top of the folding stairs, Chase feels around for a light switch, and the room comes into focus. It’s still fairly dark since there’s only one bare bulb overhead and one of the two windows is boarded up. Chase puts his phone on flashlight and fans the room. He starts to walk forward when I grab his jacket.“Wait.” I stow my notebook and fish my flashlight out of my satchel, thumb it on, and bright light illuminates the attic. I sweep the beam across the wooden plank floor.The windows would look out on either side of the house to the side yards. There are boxes and trunks, dust-covered, packed tightly in the corners. The light lands on the back wall, and I bobble my flashlight. Dark eyes shimmer, and it takes me a frightened second before my brain registers the stares of dead animal heads, dozens of them stacked like the relics of an ancient hunt.“That’s freaking scary,” Chase says.I take a deep breath. “Yeah. Creepy.” I swing my light beam over the other side of the attic, where dust lies in a pretty heavy blanket. Away from the broken window. I swing the beam back. “Over here, the dust’s been disturbed. You can see where Dr. Bradley worked.”When we approach the boarded-up window, chunks of glass shimmer on the floor and crunch underfoot. The plywood is neatly nailed into place, but he didn’t bother to clean up. Why leave a mess?