The Subtropics — Thomas Wagner

It could have been anything, the scene he witnessed through the darkened window of the abandoned house down the road, but it looked suspiciously like a man assaulting a woman. An assault that ended with a terrible scream and a deafening thud. When the police investigated, though, they found nothing; no sign of entry or foul play. So he tried to put it out of his mind and move on. After all, what else could he do? But soon events at the house grow stranger and the decaying remains of victims foul the brackish air.

Jonathan Clayton finds himself a suspect thrust into the house's past to bear witness in a murder case that had been opened and closed forty years ago. His own house is ransacked. He raps heads with two goons that have a penchant for knocking off local quicky-marts. His neighbor searches the estate nightly for reasons he won't divulge, and all the while Jonathan Clayton has to deal with a corrupt congressman bent on leveling the abandoned house with a well-placed sinkhole.