Chapter Seven
Hell House Client Brief: Put any mail for 'The Occupier' straight in the pit.
The pie was untouched.
Shepherd had dished it up in a child-sized, red pottery ramekin that sat beside Shithead’s cracked, patent leather bootee. It still looked fresh, the custard glossy and unclotted and the cream thick and fresh. A fly walked over the rim of the little pottery dish and flew away again.
“Just eat the damn pie,” Shepherd told her as he scraped a chunk of ectoplasm out of his hair. The texture was halfway between rice paper and snot. He flicked it into the sink and gave Shithead an annoyed look. “I’m not in the mood to coddle you today.”
Between the sex and the soothing, foreboding feeling that something was about to come home to roost, Shepherd had slept well last night.
A good thing too, since today everything that could go wrong had gone wrong.
The fetid gateway to Hell under the house had puked inhuman filth and bones all over the basement, there was a letter from the HOA notifying Dio that he was delinquent on his dues, Dio Madden’s books had somehow gotten the Danielle Steel novel on the quarantine shelf pregnant (Shepherd didn’t know how and he didn’t want to either), and they’d had four different teens scale the back wall and try to get in the house.
Shepherd had chased them all back out again, but by the time he’d done that and headed back to the basement to finish up, the fetid gateway had horked up again.
He was not in the mood to deal with Shithead being precious.
“If you don’t want it,” he said as he pulled his singed, cotton T-shirt over his head. It was soaked through with bile, his skin pink and itchy in patches. “I can just throw it out. But I’m not ‘inviting your friends for a tea party,’ OK? It’s weird, and we might have visitors later.”
He tapped his foot on the pedal of the bin.
The lid clanged up, and he tossed the wad of lightly smoking fabric on top of the deformed fetuses he’d found wedged into his free-range eggs this morning.
Something in there squirmed. Shepherd let the lid drop down and hid whatever it was from view.
He had enough on his plate. Whatever monsters had tried to hatch in his omelette this morning could be someone else’s problem.
The fly that had been buzzing around the kitchen faltered mid-loop and fell out of the air. It landed on its back, custard-tipped legs up, on top of the bin.
“And don’t just pick at it,” he said. “Eat it or lose it. Your call.”
A bubble of sour corruption popped on top of the pie, splattering cobwebbing spores over the table. Shepherd spread his hands dramatically.
“Thank you,” he said sarcastically. “Was that so hard?”
Shithead ignored him.
“Be like that,” he told her as he grabbed the Syrup of Figs and the drain cleaner from under the sink. “See if I care!”
He did care.
Shepherd poured a glug of drain cleaner into the Syrup of Figs bottle, stoppered it with his thumb, and gave it a brisk shake. While he waited for it to dissolve the last of the sticky residue from the bottom of the container, guilt pinched at him.
He could have set up the tea party. It wouldn’t have taken him long. Was it creepy and disturbing? Obviously. Did he wish there weren’t so many upsetting stains on Mr. Theodore Brown? Absolutely.
On the other hand, Shithead was…something…trapped in the body of a cursed doll. There were only so many ways she could entertain herself.
Shepherd sighed to himself and used the side of his foot to nudge a twitching lump…
…OK. That was more liquid than he’d expected.
Shepherd grimaced as he hopped to the side and tried to scrape the hair-laced, tallowy ooze off his sneaker.
“What have you been eating?” he asked the pit. “Did a teenager get past me?”
The pit screamed in the voices of a hundred souls sent unfairly to Hell, and then burped. It smelled like rotten eggs and figs.
Which was good. Teenager usually smelled of Axe body spray and feet.
Still.
“If you have eaten someone, you need to let me know now,” Shepherd said. “I’m not going to lie, I’ll be disappointed. But you’re only hurting yourself in the long run if you don’t tell me.”
He waited expectantly. The gateway gurgled uneasily. Before he could try to decipher that, a voice filtered down through the slightly ajar cellar door. Shepherd’s hand froze mid-shake as he snapped his head around to stare at the sliver of sunlight.
“...inside the actual Madden House,” an excited, vaguely familiar voice enunciated. “Longtime followers will remember that this case was—”
The rest of the sentence faded off as whoever it was moved on down the hall. Their heels clicked on the old tiles.
Shepherd heaved an aggrieved sigh and rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand.
“It doesn’t rain, but it throws in frogs,” he muttered.
He tossed the whole, syrupy bottle over the worn, stone rim of the gateway. It dropped into the damp, marshy dark, clicking against the mold-slick sides a few times, and then plopped into something down the bottom that sounded thick and wet.
“If you’ve been scavenging,” Shepherd warned it as he turned to go. “I’ll grate you. I’d rather not, but I will. Keep that in mind.”
“...this is in the public interest,” Emily said as Shepherd tried to usher her toward the door. She held her phone up, not quite filming yet, but ready. “I mean, you came into my cafe that first day, and I warned you about this place. Now you’re living here? That’s a story.”
She made it sound like they were in it together. They were not.
Shepherd sighed. “Let me guess, you have a podcast?”
“I have a channel,” Emily corrected, defensively. “It’s small, but all I need is the right story, and it’ll take off. From forty-seven listeners to four thousand. The algorithm loves a mystery.”
She raised her phone, eyes bright with the desire to not work customer service anymore, and asked, “So what is it like living in—”
Behind her, the door to the basement creaked open. There was nothing there, but it was obtrusively there. You couldn't miss it.
Emily lowered her arm as she looked around.
“...did you hear that?” she asked.
Shepherd reached into his pocket for his switchblade. All the verve had drained from Emily as she stared at the open door. She craned her head to the side as if she could see someone.
“What was that?”
“You shouldn't talk to strangers,” Shepherd said as he put his free hand on her shoulder. Before he could do anything else, the front door slammed open behind them. Both of them jumped. Emily's phone clattered to the floor and skittered across the tiles toward the open basement door.
It slid further than seemed natural. Shepherd stepped forward and blocked it with his foot, gave the basement door a shove, and it clicked shut. On the other side, nothing was indignantly silent at the insult.
“Are you Shepherd…” The question started out confident, in a smooth, velvety baritone, then faltered. “Doncaster didn't know your surname?”
Shepherd turned to look at his visitor. The man standing on the threshold looked like a middle-aged guy dressed for golf, with expensively cut hair and a lazy smile.
He extended his hand. Shepherd considered his options, let the knife drop back into his pocket, and accepted it.
“I’m Easy Harlow,” the man said, holding onto Shepherd's hand a beat too long. “I'm with the HOA.”
Oh.
Shepherd took his hand back.
“Then I probably can’t help you,” he said, trying to disengage. “I’m just the—”
Easy kept smiling. “Oh, I know,” he said, holding up a clipboard. "That’s the first infringement that the board has asked to be addressed before we proceed to legal action.”
Shit. Those were the magic words. Shepherd felt the energy of the House shift as its demonic terms locked onto the conversation.
Emily rubbed her hand over her face and looked between them, her phone forgotten on the floor.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Nothing good,” Shepherd said.
Shepherd consulted the business card that had been tucked into the onboarding file that Renfield’s had left for him. His usual client manager had passed Shepherd’s on as a sub, but they weren’t the one in charge of the account.
Based on the business card that was…
“Ben Maddigan,” Shepherd read out. Then quickly followed up in the same breath with, “Please don’t put me on—”
Too late. The ‘on hold’ music kicked back in, the staticky, slightly off-tempo cover of a Miley Cyrus song picking up right where it had left off. Shepherd made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat and, hands clenched around his phone, thumped the edge of it against his forehead.
“Having problems?” Easy asked as he looked around the frame of the kitchen door, one dark eyebrow raised.
It was hard to deny, but it probably wouldn’t be professionally prudent to say ‘yes’. Shepherd gave the HOA representative a tight smile that said nothing one way or another.
“Phone tag,” he said and headed back into the kitchen.
Emily—and the 47 loyal viewers of Cold Cases Connecticut—had been ushered back to the little orange VW Bug she’d parked outside. Her phone was still under the dresser. Shepherd had a mental note made to deal with that later.
He had a feeling that getting rid of Easy wouldn’t be as…easy…as hitting him with a big magnet a few times.
The ‘on hold’ music had transitioned into a slightly shitty cover of a Sam Smith earworm. Shepherd shifted it to the back of his mind as he set the phone down on the counter.
“Maybe you should wait until the situation regarding Mr. Madden’s next of kin is resolved,” he suggested. “I’m just a freelancer, and Renfield’s only has a limited remit to act on our client’s behalf.”
Easy had helped himself to a glass of water.
He stood in front of the range, his weight idly shifted onto one hip, as he took a drink from the tall glass.
Either the particulates in the liquid or the dank, mossy aftertaste it left in the back of the throat made him grimace.
He lowered the glass and wiped his thumb over his mouth.
“We could, but we won’t. The board voted to proceed.”
“Wh—” Shepherd started to ask.
Easy didn’t bother to wait for him to finish.
“We had an emergency meeting last night,” he said. “We emailed the current owner of record about it, which satisfies all notification requirements in our bylaws.”
“He’s dead,” Shepherd pointed out.
Easy raised a finger. “Assumed dead,” he corrected.
It was a point that Shepherd had made himself, but it was more annoying from Easy.
“We don’t have any sub-clauses covering that.
Someone should probably raise that at our meeting, but for now we’re in the clear.
Anyhoo, according to Captain Doncaster, you're the responsible party of record. So, if you could sign on the dotted line acknowledging receipt of the Notice of Violation and the remediation requirements. As you said, you’re not actually a representative of the Estate, but for the record, they will have thirty days to bring the house up to code and in line with the articles covering the garden, exterior, and presentation of the property within the CC&Rs.
If they don’t act within the timeline, that will automatically trigger Section 5.
2 enforcement procedures. But that won’t be your problem.
So…if you could. I'm going to be late for my tee time at the golf club.”
He leaned over and tapped the literal dotted and initialed line with a long finger.
Shepherd reached for the forms. He cast his eye down the long list of supposed violations. The majority of them were strikingly mundane in nature. Also remarkably petty—the shade of paint on the fence was two tones off the approved Shrimpboat Pink? Really?
“Well, I guess I don’t have much choice,” Shepherd said reluctantly as he looked back up at Easy.
The man looked smug. Shepherd tucked the board against his chest and folded his arms over it.
“But I will need to have an independent inspector confirm that these violations are all accurate and that they have been properly investigated and documented. Until then I’m not saying anything, and I’ll need a stay on proceedings. ”
The smirk on Easy’s face curdled.
Shepherd hadn’t dealt with that many HOAs, but he had dealt with New York co-ops. The mainstay tactics of bureaucratic intimidation were very similar.
“...that’s one way to go,” Easy said sourly. “Not sure it’s something I’d waste my time on when it’s not even my house.”
“That’s why people pay Renfield’s rates,” Shepherd told him. “We go above and beyond.”
They also went below and behind, but that was for clientele that were in the know.
Easy glanced at his watch and grimaced at the time.
“Fine,” he said, under the time crunch of his upcoming tee time.
He straightened up and pointed one finger at Shepherd.
“But the stay is only on the enforcement process. The remediation timeline still starts from notification. If everything on that list hasn’t been addressed, the HOA will have to escalate.
Good luck even finding someone to look at the place in that timeframe. ”
“Don’t worry, I’m resourceful.”
Easy shrugged as he carried the glass of water over. He reached past Shepherd—uncomfortably close to his personal space—to put it in the sink.
“And I’m a contractor,” Easy said. “It’s a busy month. Or it’s going to be. Trust me.”
Shepherd’s gut reaction to that was ‘no,’ and he was usually not a good judge of character at all. So that didn’t bode well.
He grabbed his phone, now onto an electro-bossa-nova cover of something, and followed Easy out of the kitchen.
He watched from the front door as the lanky man sauntered back to the cherry-red BMW, an equally red-haired trophy girlfriend boredly scrolling on her phone in the passenger seat as she waited for him.
As Easy drove away, the crisp electronic four-by-four harmonies finally cut off on Shepherd’s phone. It was replaced by the flat, Midwestern voice of client-manager Ben.
Probably.
It didn’t matter as long as it was someone who worked for Renfield’s.
“...yes?” whoever it was snapped impatiently. “Is there anyone there?”
Shepherd fumbled the phone between his hands as he lifted it to his ear. “Yes,” he said quickly. “I’m still here. Sorry. Ah, this is Shepherd? I’m housesitting for—”
“Hell House,” Ben said. “Madden’s account. I am up to speed on that. What is it?”
Shepherd scrubbed his hand through his hair. “We have a bit of a problem.”
“A bit?” Ben snorted. “Our client has ghosted us. The account is still open. The house is in limbo, and you think there’s a bit of a problem?”
“The Homeowner’s Association was just here,” Shepherd said.
There was a pause, a deep sigh, and the soft, windy thump of someone sitting down hard on an expensively ergonomic chair.
“Fuck,” Ben said. With feeling.