The Abandoned House

Down the street from my apartment, right next door to the Fred Fuller Gas & Propane Co. and within spitting distance of the new Chinese restaurant that used to be Elisha’s, is a house that I’ve often thought would make a great first home for my wife and son and I. It has obviously been vacant for quite some time, with knee-high grass in the front that was only recently cut down to nothing, and you can tell from the street that the building itself is a wreck inside and out, but it’s a nice enough place with a big side yard and a good location on the main drag. If nothing else, the place has potential.

It first caught my attention one day when I was walking by on the way to the store. I made a mental note of the address – the faded numbers above the front door appeared to say “140” – and looked it up when I got home.

While my original search turned up information on the street’s other abandoned house, a beautiful little place across the street that would be perfect if only it had a kitchen (like many houses in the area, it had apparently been converted to a business at some point, and businesses typically don’t require full kitchens; this really only becomes a problem when you then have to try passing the house off as a residence again), there was nothing on that mysterious little rundown building that intrigued me so. I didn’t pursue it; we were not, after all, in the market for a house. It was merely a bit of whimsy with which to distract myself from time to time.

About a week ago, I made a late evening trip down to Shaw’s to buy some fudge. I love fudge. After proceeding directly to the bakery and procuring a pound of the stuff, I decided to wander around the store for a few minutes to see if there was anything else I needed. As I passed the newspaper rack, a headline on the front page of The Cabinet caught my eye:

Brother of Milford homicide victim say it’s time family had answers*

*That’s the headline on the web version of the story. I don’t know that the print version was exactly the same, but I know it was similar.

I started to continue on my aimless travels before curiosity got the better of me and I stopped to read the beginning of the story about an unsolved murder in my cozy little town:

MILFORD – It’s been eight years since police found Paul Herlihy’s body in his Nashua Street home and eight years since an autopsy determined his death was a homicide.

No one has ever been charged in the crime, and no suspect, weapon or motive was ever identified. Authorities said the cause of death has been withheld for investigative reasons.

Now Bill Herlihy of Milton, Mass., says the family is tired of waiting for answers as to how and why his 51-year-old brother died in the summer of 2003.

Paul Herlihy, an antiques dealer and Massachusetts native, had been dead for several days when he was found inside 425 Nashua St. on Aug. 27, 2003, after a family member asked police to check his welfare. He had moved to Milford that winter, intending to open an antiques shop in the house.

Well then. My first thought was that my wife and I were engaged at the time Mr. Herlihy was killed, living just a couple miles away with her parents in Amherst, and I had absolutely no recollection of this incident. I’m quite observant.

My second thought was that this HAD to be the house down the street, the one I wanted to buy on the cheap and raise my family in.

In all the times I’ve walked and driven past this house, it never occurred to me to double check the address. The 140 was right there above the door, a bit faded by the elements but plain for anyone to see, and I never questioned the fact that it was way too far from the Oval, where I’m assuming the low numbers are, to actually be such a low number.

Confirmation was easy enough. Tuesday, I walked down to that Chinese place, Cherry Blossom, and checked the number on the house next door on the way. It was 433. A Google search for Fred Fuller Oil & Propane revealed that it is located at 419 Nashua St. So the location of this terrible murder was one of four places: a nice little home with a well-manicured yard; an oil and propane business; the hospital across the street; or the dilapidated white house that looks like it hasn’t been lived in for, oh, eight years. Hold on, I’m gonna puzzle over this for a while. I’ll get back to you when I figure something out.

After I realized that this was, indeed, the scene of the crime, I found myself wondering about its status, what will happen to it when the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit finally cracks the case.

“It’s still a decent little place,” I thought to myself. “I wouldn’t mind living there.”

Immediately after thinking this, of course, I slapped myself across the face. Hard. I’ve seen plenty of horror movies - it’s probably my favorite genre – and how many horror movies focus on THIS EXACT PREMISE? Violent crime occurs in a home, family moves into said home, weird shit starts happening, family flees in terror. The Amityville Horror, anyone? My wife loves Ryan Reynolds*. She would love nothing more than for me to BE Ryan Reynolds. But I’m pretty sure she does not want to me to be the Ryan Reynolds who makes the questionable decision to move his family into a haunted house.

*I don’t know how she feels about James Brolin.

Even after that, I found myself thinking, “This is just nonsense. Stuff like that only happens in the movies. Haunted houses aren’t real.” And I had to punch myself in the face again, because that is EXACTLY WHAT THE PROTAGONIST OF THESE MOVIES ALWAYS SAYS! “Haunted? Pfffffft. Please. I ain’t ‘fraid of no ghost.” Then a week later, the entire family has moved halfway across the country because they refuse to go back into that house.

No thank you. I think I’ll stick with my apartment for now.