Clarissa crosses to the unit and lays a hand on the vent at the top. “It’s cool to the touch,” she says. “Like it was definitely running earlier.”
I close the distance to where she’s standing and lay my own hand there, something I should have thought to do earlier.
Itiscool.
“I promise you I haven’t touched it,” I say. “The machine might simply feel cool because of how chilly the room’s been.”
Clarissa nods lightly, her gray eyes pensive. I have to hand it to her as a property manager: though she might be starting to think I’m a little nuts, she’s giving nothing away. Stepping away from the unit, she gazes around the room, and I see her eyes land on the bedside table. Along with my iPad and an empty water glass, the remote control for the AC is lying there, in the exact spot I left it the other night. Clarissa approaches the table, picks up the remote, and presses a button.
As the machine fires up, she gives a quick nod, as if everything’s starting to make sense. “You know what I think happened,” she says over the whir. “You must have accidentally hit the on button right before you went downstairs today.”
Really?
“But even if I did accidentally turn it on, how did the unit turnoff?” I ask. “Because it definitely wasn’t running when I came home.”
“I’ve heard from a few renters that this remote can be fickle at times,” she says, bobbing the device in her hand. She points it at the machine again and presses the off button. “Like it’s got a mind of its own. And of course, it’s programmed to shut itself off in certain circumstances.”
Next she’s going to tell me it can summon Obi-Wan Kenobi if I need him. “What circumstances?” I ask.
“If the room reaches the programmed temperature, just like a window unit would.”
“But wouldn’t that same internal system have triggered it to kick back on once the room started to warm again in the last half hour?”
She looks up to the left, clearly thinking. “Why don’t we go back downstairs and see what the manual says?”
Clarissa leads the way this time, and after entering the kitchen, she tugs open an overstuffed drawer she pointed out to me on Thursday. After rummaging through it for a minute, she shakes her head.
“Well, we seem to be missing it,” she says, and I notice her sneak a quick peek at her watch. “But maybe the machine’s only programmed to run for so long. Or, like I said, it was being fickle.”
The machine with a mind of its own. As we stand side by side in the kitchen, my eyes drift around the room, and I think of the overhead light I found on on Thursday night, the one I could have sworn I’d turned off before leaving.
“Clarissa, does anyone besides you have keys to the house?” I ask. “Like the cleaning person, maybe?”
“Only the owners,” she insists. “And they’re out of the country right now. When we’re between clients, I open it up for the cleaners and then come back later to see them out.”
She pinches her lips together, and for the first time, I sense I might be trying her patience.
“I really don’t think you have anything to be alarmed about,” she adds. “This is a very safe area, and no one’s ever had any issues with the house.”
There’s no point in trying to make any more of a case with her—because she clearly doesn’t buy there’s a problem. And evenIcan admit it’s hard to believe someone would sneak into the house just to run the AC.
“Well, I appreciate you dropping by,” I say. “I guess I just have to consider the cold air to be a fluke thing.”Or a ghost, I think but don’t say. Aren’t cold spots one sign of their presence in a house?
“Yes, just a fluke. I’ll let you get back to what you were doing. But don’t hesitate to call if anything else crops up.”
I trail behind her to the front door. “Can I ask you one more question before you go?” I say, then give her a second to turn around and face me again. “Is it true that Jamie Larsson was staying here before he died?”
The question clearly catches her off guard. “Um, yes, he was. That’s why the house became available so suddenly.”
“So I guess you had a chance to meet him.”
“Just briefly. What a nice young man, and of course I was very sad to learn what happened. Were you two friends?”
“We were once,” I say, realizing I have no right to say it. I swing open the door for her, and we wish each other goodbye.
As soon as she’s gone, I return upstairs and unplug the AC unit from the socket near the floor, so there’s no chance in hell of me mysteriously activating it again. Just to be sure, I also move the remote to the top of the old wooden dresser.
Back downstairs, I settle at the dining room table with my laptop and look up the manual for the AC unit online, but it doesn’t clear up my confusion. It confirms that that machine turns off when it reaches the desired coolness but should turn back on again once the room temperature is too high again.
