Something Funny's Going On

An investigation

On days like today, I usually relax in my easy chair at home. I was in the process of relaxing while keeping an ear out for the phone because I was on call. My wife was a little irritated because it was a holiday and she was planning a party. A Halloween party, no less. We were invited to attend, in costume, at a neighbor's home, but we would never make it. Being on call meant waiting for a call from headquarters to investigate a murder, calm a riot, or handle the duties of other officers who had opted to take the day off. You see, I am a detective for the local police department.


Today I was ordered to surveil a mansion in an upscale neighborhood. Teenagers had been found to loot and harass the owners of the mansion in the past, but the homeowners were now on vacation. Since it was Halloween Day, the Chief expected teenage nonsense.


When I told my wife about the assignment and that I would be sitting in a car all day, she became even more irritated. It would require calling all of her friends to cancel the invitation, and she sorely didn't want to do that. She needed excitement in her life. I was willing to include her as long as she was safe. As a consolation for spoiling her plans, today’s plans would allow her all the excitement Halloween can bring.


Wives usually stay home at night while detectives are investigating nefarious deeds. I could understand why she felt left out. I expected that she and I would spend the entire day together, regardless of the call of duty. I love my wife, so I was not overly concerned when she begged to come along for the surveillance and join me in the car. It was a nice day outside, and the falling leaves and orange-coated lawns made it appealing to have an auto-picnic with her by my side.


It was late afternoon when we arrived at the site indicated by my Chief. We arrived at the mansion on time with the picnic basket in the car. I called headquarters to let the Chief know I was in position. There were several park benches near the mansion, but I informed my wife we would have to settle for remaining in the car to perform my duties as a detective.


Lucy, my wife, was ecstatic by the location. On her side of the street, the lawns were manicured and beautiful. Often leaves of yellow and green and tan colors would fall on the car, and Lucy would be a little startled by them. Lucy often giggled when she was startled, and today was no exception.


We were parked in an affluent neighborhood where most of the homes were sitting on flat lots. All but one. Our house location for monitoring was sitting on a hill. The house was precisely off to my left, and I could watch the distressed home whenever I wasn't drinking or eating one of my wife's homemade tuna sandwiches. My personal favorite. Not entirely appropriate for a Halloween celebration, but my favorite. We topped off our lunch with a root beer soda and chocolate-covered cookies. Lucy always threw in a bit of sugar and spice with a healthy sandwich to keep me fit.


It was exactly six pm when the light began to fade from the sky as people started milling around to attend their parties. Children running from house to house with half-filled Halloween baskets were a common sight. All of them were decked out in their favorite costumes, yelling Trick or Treat. A head or two above them were the teenagers. No costumes, no baskets, no running. Lucy noticed them before I did, and began to say how shameful it was that teenagers would be trick or treating at their age.


I considered moving the car to the other side of the street to put off any intent by the teens to perform nonsense in this neighborhood. I wanted a relaxed six hours of routine monitoring. Sitting in the car for six hours was hard on the stomach, and there didn't appear to be any restrooms nearby. Rules

and regulations, however, prohibited me from confronting civilians or potential perps just for walking down the street. I continued to watch as I couldn't leave my post.


Lucy had become more than a little concerned. Not so much for the costumed children but for us. Lucy finally noticed the shabby-looking mansion as the lights had come on in almost every window in the home. Lucy wasn't the first to notice, but she was the most outraged because my surveillance was all about the mansion on the other side of the street. Two windows that looked like eyes watching the street and the pedestrians who used the sidewalks. A door that wasn't oval in any way, but perpendicular to the porch. From a distance it appeared to mouth the word 'Boo' when closed. There were two stories of well-lit windows and what seemed to be owls and birds perched on the rooftop. The house was, for lack of better words, medieval. Something straight out of an Alfred Hitchcock novel. The wind began to swirl leaves around the yard, and Lucy finally saw the large bat figurines on the front gate entrance. My arm was beginning to hurt from the number of times Lucy had jabbed her nails into my coat. In the windows, you could see what appeared to be figures moving about in the house. Nothing suspicious yet, but then I recalled that the owners were supposed to be on vacation. If no one was home, why was there movement in the windows? I would have to investigate.


As Lucy was already irritated by what she noticed, I thought it best that she remain in the car while I performed my duties. I told her I would be right back, but Lucy would not stay in the car alone. She assured me she would be no trouble. She didn't have to ask me twice as I looked into her droopy eyes. I presumed she felt some form of fear at being left alone. I relented, and she insisted on holding my hand as we walked to the mansion gates. As we hesitantly approached, it was a chilling sight to see the front of the house. The figures in the upper windows were still moving.


I have never believed in ghosts or witches or goblins, but I was visibly nervous. Lucy drew closer and closer to me as we proceeded to the front porch. It almost felt like I was dragging her along. I heard a clinking sound, and we stopped immediately. Lucy had kicked something with her foot and went to discover what it was. We were both relieved that it was just a key. More of a skeleton key. It was all corroded, and I would later describe it to my Chief as very ancient-looking.


There were no railings on the front porch to assist me as I helped Lucy up the squeaky steps. We cautiously approached the front door. No doorbell was seen as it was getting dark. I wish I had brought a flashlight. The house inside was well lit, so I continued to look for signs of intrusion. I knocked.


I don't know what I expected. Would the Butler answer and let us in? Would teenagers trample us when the door opened? But aha! We had a key! I pointed to the key Lucy had found and was still holding. She inserted it in the door lock. Immediately, the key was pushed out of the lock from the other side, and it fell on the porch. I picked it up and tried again. Once more, it was pushed out of the lock. Lucy and I stared at each other, not knowing what was happening.


I always carried my skeleton key as a detective properly would, and it worked on the door as usual. Perhaps the former skeleton key was too corroded to handle the job. At least, my key worked, and we would shortly be inside even though we had no search warrant. The thought crossed my mind that whoever or whatever was inside was offering us an invitation, not just keeping us out. When the door opened, it was almost like the door opened by itself. Lucy gripped my arm a little tighter as we stepped inside. The light from inside blinded us for a few moments, but when we were inside the entryway, I could tell the house was very Victorian. A statue here and there. Large urns on either side of the staircase, with fresh flowers in every place you looked. It was beautiful in every way and truly inviting. As the furnishings passed by my eyes and the light took all the shadows away, I tried to elaborate on its description in some definitive way. I started to take notes. Being truly honest, suffice it to say it was indescribable. I was pretty sure my boss would understand my lack of a proper description if he could only see what I saw.


It was noticeably quiet. There was no need for Lucy to go any further, but she wanted to see more as she was enthralled by just the entryway. Except for the stairs, the first floor offered nothing more to see as all of the doors were closed. Lucy still had the key she found outside and proceeded to try every other key lock she came to. However, on the bench just to the right of the stairwell post was a box, and the key fit perfectly. I cautioned her not to open it because we had no search warrant. Lucy didn't hear me as the lid popped up. We never did find out what superstitious spirit we let out when the lid popped up, but perhaps it was just an odor lingering in the box. There was nothing in the box we could see.


At the same time, the door behind us slammed shut, so our attention was diverted to the door. The lights began to flicker. The floor began to tremble. Lucy was again tightly gripping my arm. Above us, it sounded like a flock of crows was fluttering all around us. Then, the Owl began to hoot. The clock began to chime as it was now exactly ten pm. I wanted to leave.


Lucy began to settle down, but she was still clinging to my arm. She started to pull me into the drawing room. When I finally got the door open, a fire arose from the fireplace, and the floor-length drapes began to flutter. I could feel eyes upon me. It was quite apparent we were not alone, as I noted the many generations of family portraits hanging on the walls. A warm breeze passed through the open door. It smelled like something had died in the house. I tried to locate the site of the odor, but I didn't have any luck. Perhaps the forensics department could locate the cause of the foul smell. I asked Lucy to return to the car and call the precinct for support. I even told her the words to use. Lucy wouldn’t budge.


I still had to investigate the upstairs rooms to ensure there was no teenage nonsense occurring. I couldn't leave Lucy alone in the drawing room, and I could feel her fingernails penetrating my suit jacket again. We began to move out of the drawing room towards the staircase. I wasn't particularly concentrating on the steps of the staircase as they were all supposed to be built to conform to local codes. My first steps were missteps as we began to rise up. The steps appeared to resemble an escalator, but how could this be? All the wood changed to metal, and when I put my foot on the first step, the steps carried me upward. From the entry door, nothing appeared to be further from the truth. Everything in the entryway was wood. The steps began to rise on their own, and then both Lucy and I fell on the top step. There was no last step. There was just a gap at the top, and a large hole with no apparent bottom. I quickly pulled Lucy up to avoid being trapped in that gaping hole. It was a massive hole. There were no safety nets, so I assumed it was a DIY job. A contractor wouldn't leave that hole without a solid cover to prevent an accident.


Lucy and I moved swiftly to the first door, and I opened it quickly. It was a modest room compared to the Victorian rooms below. I noticed another slight warm breeze, but this time it came from an open window. Dutifully, I went to close the window. As I reached forward to close the window, it slammed down hard, almost hitting my arm. I had been telling Lucy to stay back, but she pulled me in to hug me. She may have needed that hug more than I, but in the end Lucy saved my arm, and I hugged her even more.


All around us were items of interest I could poke at, but for the moment, I would let them have a pass. All of the rules we detectives lived by presumed you didn't touch anything. Good advice! Whatever was amiss or underfoot, we couldn’t discern. I would have to call the lab boys to get some answers. Lucy was still looking here and there, but she decided not to touch anything more either. We didn't need any more surprises.


We had been in almost every room on the upstairs floor. The motion in the windows I discovered was from a series of figurines the homeowner carefully set up to thwart would-be robbers. It was kind of an ingenious setup. Instead of just a series of train cars on a track, the homeowner glued down cutouts of humans to ride the train. When they passed by a light pointing at the window, the figurine would show up as a larger person. Ingenious! Of course, the light would have to be turned on to power the train, and it would require an adjustable transformer to keep the train from going too fast. The depot even had a unique feature so that the track direction would change to a different track when the train passed by. It would appear that more people were in the house when that happened. I thought a little music might give it an added air of believability to let robbers know someone was home.


But I was finished! I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could maneuver Lucy and myself out to safety. That might be harder than I thought, as she was intrigued by the mansion. I avoided more windows and walked to the stairs with the lights out. Lucy's ears perked up when the train died. The train whistle turned to a sour note.


We still had to get down the stairs. Lucy readily came when I called to her. She had been snooping in the final room we checked out. No more open windows and no more train depots to wrestle with. I jumped down to the first step. Lucy followed, and I caught her in my arms. Another hug! The stairs once again looked normal, but as soon as we were on our way down, the steps turned into a slide. We were both on our butts, but on our way down. I didn't know what to expect at the end of the slide. I didn't stop to find out. We had been virtually ousted through the front door and down the porch steps. I thought I could hear the crows chasing after us, but the familiar sound of the Owl was most noticeable. I had the wherewithal to look once more at the upper windows, but I didn't see any signs of the teenagers. If they had been in that house, I surmised that they hadn't been there very long.


When Lucy and I reached the bat gate, we were initially relieved to be away from the house. However, I couldn't open the bat gate. Not being very athletic, I had difficulty overcoming the fence. I had to crawl over the fence. With all the strength I could muster, I lifted Lucy. I couldn't wait until we got back to the car. I carried Lucy while she was still in my arms to avoid lingering at the gate.


It was exactly midnight, and I was off duty. I called headquarters and reported that there had been no activity at the mansion. I wasn't going to let anyone make me out to be a foolish man, spooked or otherwise.


As the phone rang, on the first ring, I felt hands on my body shaking me. Lucy placed a kiss on my forehead and placed the unturned blanket over me. I was sweaty under the blanket, and managed to kick it off while lying there. The phone rang for the second time from what appeared to be some distance away. I reached my arm over to answer. It was the headquarters. The Chief began by telling me he was sorry to have awakened me, but I needed to surveil a house in an affluent neighborhood. The owners were on vacation, and there were teenagers in the area along with the trick-or-treaters. The Chief was expecting teenage nonsense



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