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House has been a popular tourist trap...attraction...since 1932. For those of you who aren’t whizzes at math, that’s a while ago. The Great Depression was going on. Herbert Hoover was President of the United States. Edward the Eighth sat on the throne of Great Britain. Germany’s comeback kid, Adolph Hitler, was defeated that year in a run-off election for the presidency when a guy by the name of Hindenburg burst his balloon...so to speak.”
    “Oh, the humanity, ” someone threw in.
    “Exactly,” Patty said. “In 1932, the Japanese invaded Shanghai. Al Capone was sent to prison in Atlanta. The Lindbergh baby got himself kidnapped and murdered. Amelia Earhart was still among the unvanished. Gary Cooper starred in A Farewell to Arms and Shirley Temple made her first movie. Not only that, but 1932 marked the birth of Senator Edward Kennedy and Elizabeth Taylor.”
    “There you go,” Owen whispered to Monica. “Liz.”
    “But the real highlight of 1932 was the opening of Beast House. The Victorian style house had already been standing for thirty years, but as a private home. It took Maggie Kutch to turn the place into one of America’s most bizarre and infamous tourist attractions.
    “Beast House had been built in 1902 by Lilly Thorn, widow of Lyle Thorn. Lyle, the leader of the Thorn Gang, was an outlaw known throughout the west during the latter years of the nineteenth century. You name it, he did it. He robbed banks, stage coaches, and trains. He rustled cattle and horses. It’s said that he committed so many murders and rapes that nobody could keep track of them all. The brutal massacres of several entire families in the Arizona territory have been attributed to Lyle Thorn and his gang, but that’s mostly speculation. Some people think the massacres were the work of Apaches. Nobody knows for sure. Nor does anyone know the fate of Lyle Thorn or his gang. Their depredations simply stopped in the early 1890’s. We can only assume that he and his band of cut-throats came to a sudden, violent end.
    “On their way to the end, however, they worked up a ton of bad karma. Lyle must’ve passed it on to his wife and children, and I think it all ended up in Beast House.
    “As I mentioned, his wife’s name was Lilly. They were Lyle and Lilly Thom. But nobody around Malcasa Point ever saw Lyle. He had apparently ‘bought the ranch’ before Lilly and the kids ever showed up in town. The boys were named Sam and Earl. It’s believed that Lyle was their father, but nobody knows for sure.
    “Anyway, Lilly and the two boys arrived in town in early 1902. And they were loaded. Apparently, Lyle’s life of crime had been very lucrative. Before you know it, Lilly had a crew hard at work building her dream house.
    “And they all lived happily ever after in the dream house until August 2, 1903, when the beast came up out of the cellar and ran amok, committing wholesale slaughter on her family. You’ll hear all about that on the tour, though, so I won’t get into it now.
    “For now, we want to skip ahead about twenty-eight years. During most of that time, the Thorn house stood deserted. Nobody wanted to live there because of the killings. But in 1931, the Kutch family bought it and moved in. Maggie Kutch lived in the house with her husband, two little girls, and her baby son. For just about two weeks. Then one rainy night, her entire family was brutally slain by what she described as a ‘raving, white beast.’ Maggie was the only survivor.
    “You might think that Maggie would’ve left town after such a tragedy. But she stayed and built a home for herself directly across the street from the old Victorian. Her new house was a fortress made of brick. And it didn’t have a single window. You’ll see it today. Unfortunately, the tour doesn’t include the Kutch house. Maggie’s daughter still lives there, so it’s off limits.”
    A blonde kid a few rows ahead of Owen raised his hand.
    “Question?” Patty