Interstate 405 to US Highway 101, then west and northwest toward Oxnard, Ventura . . . Santa Barbara. Inland on State Route 154 to the Santa Ynez Valley, past Lake Cachuma, and then northeast on a county road of sun-fissured blacktop crumbling at the edges.
The six-acre parcel tucked into the low foothills of the San Rafael Mountains. The nearest town, Santa Ynez, lay more than ten miles away. These acres had once been part of a much larger property planted with grapes. The sun-graced valley boasted in excess of a hundred wineries; but for some reason, this enterprise had failed.
Most of the vines were rotted stumps. Others were withered, with looping tangles of dry and barren trailers. Wild mustard and grass and a wide variety of weeds had overtaken the vine rows, the regimented patterns of which could still be discerned, though not many more years would be required to erase what remained of the property’s history as a vineyard.
Split-rail fencing, broken down in places by termites and dry rot, encircled the Jessup parcel. A more recent rickety gate of pipe and chain link defended the entrance to the driveway, and the two-story clapboard house stood well back from the county lane, behind a yard that had not been mown in years.
At 11:12, almost twenty minutes prior to his appointment, David parked on the shoulder of the road, near the driveway. Passing the town of Santa Ynez, he had phoned Stuart Ulrich, the current owner of the property, to report that he was in the neighborhood.
Weather had worn much of the paint from the old house. Dirt filmed windows as milky as the eyes of a long-blinded animal. The front porch steps were swaybacked, and balusters were missing from the railing.
In spite of its decrepitude, the house looked formidable and alive with menace, as though the evil done therein had not vacated the premises when Ronny Lee Jessup had been hauled off to prison, but remained and empowered some supernatural entity that took up residence and waited now to possess a visitor.
The horrendous history of the house made the property a hard if not impossible sell. Stuart Ulrich had acquired it for a pittance of unpaid back taxes.
He had for a while conducted tours of the place. A surprising number of curious people with an interest in the macabre had paid for the privilege of inspecting the subterranean rooms where so many innocent women had endured so much terror and misery. Business had been best at Halloween.
The house also made money for Ulrich when a documentary about Ronny was filmed there, and again when a low-budget horror movie used the property for a fictionalized version of the true story.
David figured that those drawn to this house of murder must be sick specimens, yet here he found himself. However, he wasn’t drawn by the thrill of the abominations committed in this place. Instead, as the years passed, he had increasingly come to believe—or hope—that something he would see in this cellar maze would either give him a clue to Emily’s fate or provide a salient detail that he could use to pry the truth from Ronny Lee Jessup.
Sitting in his SUV, waiting for Ulrich, he realized he’d become desperate for a resolution and a way forward with his life. How long could a man live in desperation, heart riddled with sorrow, before he might become as mad as Poe’s grief-pierced narrator in “The Raven”？
Before leaving New York, he’d made arrangements by phone with Ulrich. He had claimed to be writing a book about Jessup. Ronny was old news in this darkening world that produced greater horrors by the week, and the house had long ago ceased to draw the morbid curious. Ulrich smelled a revenue stream and wanted five thousand dollars for a first tour. He settled for twenty-two hundred, which David had wired to the man’s account prior to flying west.
Now Ulrich arrived in a Ford pickup and parked in front of David. The driveway lay between their vehicles. They met at the gate.
Ulrich proved to be about forty, maybe two inches short of six feet, lean and sinewy, with a high brow and a low, wide jaw like a scoop. He was as solemn as if he were an animated cadaver. When they shook hands, his was cool and moist.
“Any photos you put in your book, I’ll need a separate fee.”
“I don’t intend to take photographs. I don’t have a camera.”
“You got yourself a smartphone, sure enough. I’m just sayin’， so there’s no argument later.”
“I understand.”
Ulrich keyed open the padlock on the gate. “We’ll walk from here. I don’t allow no one to drive right up to the house. Too damn easy to sneak some souvenir into their car and drive off with it.”
The long, rising driveway was hard-packed earth with embedded gravel, stubbled with weeds that crackled underfoot.