Chapter 7
Unease spreads through me, crawling down my back like a hundred baby spiders. I swallow and my voice comes out sounding ragged. “Murder house?”
“Yeah.” The guy’s face lights up with wicked glee. “More than one person has met a bad end in this place. And the woman who was killed here?” His eyes gleam, morbid excitement oozing through his voice. “Not just killed, but what was done to her body—”
“Okay.” The girl interrupts him by grabbing his elbow and giving him a hard stare. “We should go if we’re going to make our ticket time for the catacombs.”
My nod is automatic, politeness taking over despite the unease reeling in my head and roiling in my gut.
What murder is he talking about? What woman? When? I have so many questions. Questions I’m not sure I want answered.
At least, not by him.
The way he smiled when talking about a woman’s dead body. . . The neon skull leers at me, and I shudder with disgust.
Oblivious to my reaction, the guy tosses me a wave and lifts his phone, taking a few more pictures as he leaves.
Trance-like, I punch in the code, push through the black bars, and enter the apartment on autopilot. I cross gleaming parquet floors, pass the grand piano, and enter the spacious kitchen.
I should be thrilled to stay in this luxurious place, but questions plague me as I set my bags on the counter and put away the groceries.
What happened here? Who died? Was it really a murder?
Though not yet sunset, darkness creeps into every room. Craving more light, I flip on the overheads and notice a business card on the kitchen island. Plain white paper with a typed font, listing basic information for the apartment. Including a WiFi code.
WiFi. Internet.
Maybe there’s more information online. I can research the history of Maison Marteau. A quick search and—
“No,” I say in a stern voice, refocusing on what’s important. The screenplay. My career. My life.
If my mother were here, I know what she would say.
You can have distraction or you can have your passion. But you can’t have both.
One of her favorite adages. And she’d be right. I can’t afford to be distracted right now, especially by tales of murder.
Murder committed in this house.
But I still need WiFi access, so I slip the card in my pocket. Ready to get to work, I boil water and make a cup of mint tea. The pretty packaging caught my eye in the store and promised the aroma would be an “uplifting experience.”
I’m in dire need of a mood-lift right now, so I take the mug in one hand and the bag with office supplies in the other. With bright papers, pens, and highlighters purchased, the next step is finding a temporary office.
The first floor is laid out for entertaining—kitchen, dining room, main salon, and entry hall. None of the rooms here will do, so I hurry upstairs to the next level, to what I think of as my area. And a familiar space.
On the front side, expensive furniture fills le petit salon, too stiff and decorative for me to relax. And neither of the corner bedrooms will work. That leaves the unexplored back corridor and whatever waits for me on the top floor.
Rounding the banister, I pass my room and end up facing a long hallway. A door stands ajar halfway down. Creeping closer, I go in and flip on the light. One look and I know I’ve found my spot.
A desk sits near the windows, an antique piece flanked by bookshelves.
The rest of the room holds a sitting area, a sofa and two chairs facing a fireplace.
Dark wood makes up the mantle and surround, carved with intricate designs.
The room is masculine with somber colors but has a rainy-day kind of charm.
Perfect.
Leaving the bag of supplies on the desk, I retrieve my laptop, its charger, and the script from my room. I intend to investigate the third level, but exploration will have to wait. I’m too eager to get back to the screenplay.
Back in the room I now think of as the study, I turn on a lamp to beat back shadows and check my laptop battery. Sixty percent. I take it and the script to the sofa, tucking my legs beneath me on the plush cushion.
I read the opening scenes again and reacquaint myself with the setup. The heroine is reliving a trauma from childhood. Slivers of backstory introduce her character, while atmosphere and tension keep me turning pages.
A scary old house with a tortured past.
And present-day characters paying the price.
When a line of dialogue mentions a local legend, I glance up from the pages. Didn’t Lin say this was based on a true story? And if so, is the character based on a real person?
Curiosity has me sliding a glance to my laptop. Taking the card from my pocket, I join the WiFi network and open my browser. A French version of my usual search engine greets me with a color photo. Crowds gathered in the streets of Paris, fists raised, mouths open, faces furious.
I don’t need to understand French to know this is a protest. Maybe the transportation strikes that re-routed my flight.
Whatever the problem, I hope the trouble is over by the time I leave. I ignore the article, but as I type the name of the screenplay in the search bar, I keep thinking of the real-life mystery I find myself in.
Not just killed
I freeze, fingers resting on the keyboard.
A neon-green skull flashes in my head.
but what was done to her body
A shriek shatters the silence, and my muscles clench, barbwire wrapping my spine in a tight, tingling squeeze.
Pulse fluttering in my throat, I glance at the windows overlooking the gardens. I set aside the laptop and cross the room. Shades of night create shapes outside: an expanse of grass, shrubbery, and winding paths. But nothing else.
Thinking on the sound, I’m not sure it was human. But it was terrifying—so sudden and sharp.
Instinctive fear still chills my blood as I scan the dark garden again. Then shadows shift near the base of the tree, and a small creature emerges. A little black cat, slinking along the hedge.
Relief deflates my lungs, and I rub my calming heart. “Please don’t make that awful sound again. You scared me to death.”
Although, dark-tourism-guy is really more to blame. Talking about murder and dead bodies. His gruesome teaser is like an unfinished puzzle, and I’m itching to get it done. To close it up in a box once and for all.
What was done to this poor, unknown woman from the past? The not-knowing is what keeps me unsettled, allows my imagination to paint the picture.
And the picture I see is grisly.
Better if I just find out for myself, then I can focus on my work.
Huffing, I delete the film’s title in the search bar. One letter at a time.
In its place, I type Maison Marteau Paris murder. Articles about the mansion fill the first page. Out of curiosity, I follow a few links to society pages and other sites discussing the influential family.
From what I can tell, the Marteaus have been in the chocolate business since the 1800s, which explains the excessive wealth.
Everyone loves chocolate.
A few more clicks and I land on a website with history and obscure trivia about Parisian mansions. The page shows an old newspaper article with a grainy black-and-white photo. The paper is from 1922. A line through the middle marks the fold, the original scanned to create an electronic copy.
ATROCITé à LA MAISON MARTEAU
In the photo below the headline, a couple poses with two children. The mansion stands in the background. As I scan the text, a few words leap out at me—Marteau, chocolat, suicide.
Suicide?
The article is in a photo, so I can’t copy and paste. Typing in words makes translation more difficult and time consuming. I check the spelling and accent marks, and write the first paragraph into my language app.
Luckily, one paragraph is all I need. A murder-suicide and suspected love triangle. A man named Mathieu Marteau killed his wife and himself, leaving one child behind. A son.
Tragic. Sad. Needless.
But not the horrid murder dark-tourist guy made it out to be. And I still don’t understand why he mentioned the woman’s body.
Working backward, I type in “body” and get the French word corps. Methodically, I scan every line, searching. I find no mention of the word.
Maybe the details were too graphic? Too scandalous for the times?
Or maybe the powerful Marteau family kept the newspaper in check.
Shocking or not, it happened over a hundred years ago. Their tragedy has nothing to do with the here and now. Nothing to do with me.
Outside, lampposts glow in the park, disembodied white orbs floating in the night.
A sudden chill overcomes me. I pick up my tea, but it’s gone cold. So has the room, lit only by the lamp on the desk. Shadows encroach from every corner, making me wish for a fire.
Murder house. Such a ghoulish description.
So what if the mansion has a dark history? Centuries-old buildings often do. Still, my mind plays a reel of death scenarios. If I could take snapshots of this building’s past, what would I see? Would I see a woman being attacked?
Would I see her strangled on the floor, fighting for air?
Pushed down the stairs, landing with a crack?
Or stabbed in the kitchen, dress turning red?
Pressing my hands to my temples, I shake my head and will the images away. In the absence of knowledge, imagination takes over, and that’s all I’m seeing. Figments of my overactive—over-morbid—imagination.
Pulling my hair back in my hands, I clear my thoughts and refocus on the script. It’s not a sappy romcom or feel-good film, but a movie that touches on other emotions. Self-doubt and discovery, betrayal and pain, and all with an underlying vein of fear.
A fear I can almost taste.
The best actors use their own experience, bringing memories and trauma into their work. If I’m smart, I’ll do the same. Using this place to my advantage, I’ll channel everything this building is making me feel—isolation, loneliness, paranoia.
I’m by myself in a new and unfamiliar world, just like the heroine in the screenplay. It seems Claudia and I already have some things in common.
The Whisper House is fiction. Maison Marteau is my reality.
And both are horror stories.