999 (85 page)

As Dare was considering this statement, a soft but distinct, clear rap was heard. All eyes shifted to the center of the oaken table; it was as if it had been struck by an invisible knuckle. For moments no one spoke and the only sound was the patter of the rain on the mullioned windows. Then at last, beneath her breath, Freeboard murmured, “Shit!”

Trawley eyed her with a look of fond indulgence.

Dare cleared his throat and sat up in his chair. His gaze remained fixed on the center of the table as he asked, “Have you ever
seen
a ghost, Dr. Case?”

“Oh, I see them constantly.”

Dare looked up and saw that Case was smiling. “Oh, come on now, let’s have a straight answer,” he chided. “Have you ever seen a ghost?”

“Carl Jung, the great psychiatrist, saw one.”

“You jest, sir.”

“No, he saw one right beside him in his bed.”

“Oh, well, some people will say anything at all to get published.”

“Jung suspected that the dead aren’t really in a different place at all from the living,” Case went on, “but in fact were in some sort of parallel state that coexists alongside our world but remains unseen because it exists at a higher frequency, like the blades of a propeller or a fan.”

“You mean the afterlife is just another alternative lifestyle?”

Case smiled, put his head down and shook it. “Mr. Dare!”

“Doggie bow-wow,” Freeboard murmured with a soft, lilting menace. Then she grimaced, briefly crossing her eyes, while her finger made a rapid slashing move across her throat. Dare shifted hooded eyes to her briefly, then ignored her. “Dr. Case,” he said, “assuming the preposterous for a moment, what on earth makes you think that any ghost is going to act up on cue just because we’re all here on this mission?”

“Oh, no solid reason, really.” Case shrugged. “But I’ve charted all the really nasty happenings at Elsewhere, and, oddly, as it happens, almost all of them occurred at the same time of year.”

“So when is that?” Freeboard asked. She was stifling a yawn.

“Sometime in June. Early June. In fact, right about now.”

No one spoke. The only sound was the scraping of Case’s spoon against the porcelain bottom of his cup as he stirred his coffee in an absent gesture. Freeboard shot a wary glance to Dare, appraising him, and felt an incipient rush of dismay as she couldn’t discern that he was actually breathing. But at last he cleared his throat. “These people that you said went insane,” he asked Case without a trace of his customary mocking tone: “Are they living? Is it possible they could be interviewed?”

“Yes, there is one who is still alive—Sara Casey. She’s in Bellevue Psychiatric at the moment. The poor woman is completely unbalanced, I’m afraid. She insists that at Elsewhere malevolent entities are living in the spaces in the walls.”

The author turned to Freeboard with a bloodless surmise.

“Hollow
walls?” he intoned.

Case nodded.

Freeboard flipped the Phantom mask at Dare’s face.

The brunch ended, Anna Trawley was back in her room. She sat on the edge of the bed in quiet reverie, staring at the silver-framed photo of a dimpled young girl that she held in her lap with still hands. Fleeting shadows of the rain’s trickling currents on a window crept weakly down the paleness of her face like dying prayers. At last she propped the photo on a nightstand by her bed. She’d already placed a miniature alarm clock there, a perfect square with sides of smooth shiny brass and red numerals; she had bought it while working in Switzerland during the search for a serial killer. She noted the time: 1:14. Case and Dare were still talking downstairs when she’d left them and Freeboard had gone to her room to rest. She stood up and walked over to a narrow writing desk beneath a rain-spattered gabled window, pulled out the straight-backed wooden chair, sat down, and then reached a pale hand into the drawer of the desk and from within it fetched a silvery inkfed pen and a diary bound in soft pink leather; in the center of the cover a floral design of lavender blossoms entwined in a circle. Trawley unsheathed the point of the pen, and with slender, short fingers she opened the diary; it was new and emitted a faint, quick whiff of glue and new-made paper. At the top of the blank first page she wrote “Elsewhere” in a large and rounded, elegant script. Her pen made a tiny scratching sound. She turned in her chair to check the clock, and then at the top of the next clean page she recorded the day, the date and the time. Below that she carefully penned an entry:

Finally, I am at Elsewhere. Forbidding from without, within it is warm. And yet something feels broken here, awry, though I haven’t any inkling of what it could be. Joan Freeboard, the Realtor, is an original, I am fond of her already; she seems to make me smile inside. And though it might shock him to know it, perhaps, I do find that I like Terence Dare as well; so amusing, so wounded at his core, like the world. Dr. Case, as expected, is quite professorial. He is also quite smashingly handsome. Yet I’m sensing an aura of danger about him, as well as some mystery that he exudes. I felt it when the housekeeper, Morna, appeared. He seemed somehow taken aback. Why was that? And then again when he pointed me out to her and said, “Mrs. Trawley is clairvoyant, Morna.” He said it very pointedly, I thought. And then something else: when we arrived he said, “There you all are again.” What on earth could he possibly have meant by that? It could be that he misspoke, I suppose; likely so. I feel myself attracted to the man, I must say; I suppose that’s why I had to get a closer look at Morna. (I still can’t believe I was poking around to find out if the girl was a “live-in.” Shameless!) But I find I’m unable to penetrate Case: my impressions are as stones flung and skimming off the surface of a pond in whose depths some Leviathan lurks, some puzzle that has to be solved—and yet mustn’t. I see I am wandering, making no sense. The trip has been hard on my bones, so exhausting, and I’m feeling disconnected, as if in a dream. Perhaps a little lie-down will clear away the foggies. Dreams. How I dread them; I always wake up. Who was it in Shakespeare who “cried to dream again"?

Trawley looked up at the rain-streaked window, pensive, her eyes pools of memory and sadness; then abruptly she turned to her left and listened. Immobile, she waited, head tilted to the side. Then it seemed as if a tremor had bolted through the room, the lone strike of an earthquake, faint but sharp. The psychic held still and continued to listen. Then she lowered her head to the diary and wrote:

Perhaps there is something going on here after all. Either that, or I am losing my senses completely. I have just heard the voice of a man speaking Latin. Here. In this room. Not sensed
—heard.
I can translate the words, but I don’t understand them:

“I cast you out, unclean spirit…

Downstairs in the comfortable, teak-paneled library crammed with books and mementos of travel, Gabriel Case adjusted a television set as Dare watched him from a downy sofa. “Getting nothing but static,” murmured Case with annoyance.

There was no picture on the screen, only “snow.”

“Try another channel,” prompted Dare.

“I’ve tried them all.”

Case flipped through more channels, and then turned off the set. He sat down on the sofa facing Dare. “Perhaps it’s the storm,” he observed. “At least I hope so. We’d never get a repairman to come over here. Never.”

Dare glowered.
“I
wish you’d try not to say things like that.”

“What’s the difference? Nothing’s happened here in years.”

“No one’s
been
here in years.”

“Quite so. Like a drink? We’ve got everything.” Case gestured toward a built-in bar in the corner made of dark-stained oak that was shiny with wax. Four ornately carved oaken stools stained to match were arranged along the gentle curve of the counter.

Dare shook his head. “Much too early. My God, it’s barely three.” He checked his watch. “Eight minutes after.”

“Would you like to hear the story of Jung and his ghost?”

Case was innocently staring, hands folded on his stomach.

“You have a dangerous and sly sense of humor, Dr. Case.”

“The story’s fascinating. Don’t you want to hear it?”

“I would sooner be in Bosnia-Herzegovina eating sushi with Muslims in an old Russian tank.”

Dare stood up. “I must make a few notes. You’ll forgive me?”

Without further ado the author strode from the room. Case watched him walk stiffly to the staircase, ascend it, and finally vanish into his room. Case sighed and bent his head and then looked up to his left as a long and jagged fissure in the wall opened up, deep and wide, with a crackling of plaster and wood. Case watched without expression, silent and ummoving, as the massive gap sealed itself up without a trace. Then he lowered his head and gently shook it.

“Bad riming,” he murmured.

A tremor shook the room.

“Bloody nuisance as well,” Case grumbled. “It’s the left hand not knowing the activities of the right.”

He waited for another disturbance. But nothing else came.

Not yet.

Chapter Four

“You’re all right?” Case asked.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Trawley murmured.

“Watch your step there just ahead.”

“Oh, yes, thank you.”

They had entered by the alcove door beneath the staircase, descending stone steps to a concrete passageway that was narrow and dank and dark. Case shone a powerful flashlight beam on the ground just ahead to illuminate the way.

“There aren’t any lights down here?” Trawley asked. Above her dress she wore a thin tan cardigan sweater. “Seems there ought to be,” she gently complained.

“They’re here. They don’t work for some reason.”

“No.”

“In here. Watch your head, Mrs. Trawley.”

“I will.”

He led her through a doorway into a small rectangular chamber. “Well, we’re here,” he announced, and they stopped. He lifted the flashlight beam to a structure, an ornamental gray stone crypt just ahead of them. Carved into the front of it, glaring in fury, was a hideous and gaping demonic face identical to that on the door above.

“This is the heart of the house,” Case intoned.

The psychic made no comment. He turned to her.

“That was meant to make you laugh,” he said quietly. “It’s what they say in haunted house movies.”

“I know,” Trawley said. “My heart smiled.”

“It should do that more often.”

Case centered the light beam on the gargoylish face. “Pretty creature,” he observed sardonically.

“How hideous. That’s where he buried her?”

“Not exactly,” answered Case.

“Not exactly?”

“He sealed her up inside while she was still alive.”

Trawley winced. “Dear God,” she murmured.

“Brutal bastard. Forgive my French.”

Trawley moved slowly forward and then lightly brushed a hand along the face of the crypt.

“Can you see?” Case inquired.

“Very well.”

He came up beside here.

“Is Quandt in here too?” she asked him.

“Yes,” replied Case. “He is here.”

“How did he die?”

“Chironex fleckeri.”

Trawley stopped feeling at the crypt and turned around to him. She couldn’t see him, his face was a darkness.

“That’s Latin,” she said softly.

“It’s the venom of the sea anemone. They discovered a vial of its dregs in his hand. Here. On this spot. The venom paralyzes the vocal cords, and then the respiratory system, and in an hour the victim is dead from suffocation.”

Trawley put a hand to her neck. “Oh, how horrible.”

“Yes.”

“Why would he choose such a painful way to die?”

“God knows.”

She stared at his silhouette for a moment, then turned again to look at the crypt. “Bizarre design. You said the house dates from 1937?”

“Yes. But this was here first. Before. There was once another house on this site.”

“Is that so?”

“Edward Quandt tore it down and rebuilt.”

“But he left this crypt untouched?”

“He did.”

“And who was buried here then?”

“Or what.”

Once again she turned her head to his voice. She could see him more clearly now, though his eyes were still shadowed and hidden.

“I’ve found mentions in his diary of something,” Case said quietly. “Some overwhelmingly cruel and malevolent …” He paused, as though searching for a word; then said “… presence.”

In the hush that followed, a fragment of plaster broke loose from a wall. It trickled to the floor. Case turned his head to the sound, listening; then after a moment turned back to look at Trawley. “Do you sense something, Anna?” he asked her.

“Why?”

“The way you’re staring.”

“You seem so familiar to me.”

“Really?”

“Yet I know we’ve never met,” Trawley mused.

“Perhaps in some other lifetime,” said Case.

“Exactly. But past or future?”

Trawley turned again to look at the crypt, then she shivered and started to button her sweater as she faced around again and looked down. “Let’s go back. I’ve caught a chill,” she said.

“Oh, I’m so sorry.”

He tilted the flashlight’s beam to the ground just ahead, and together they exited the chamber and slowly walked back toward the steps leading up.

“Do you really believe in past lives, Dr. Case?”

“Need we really be so formal?”

“Very well,” she said. “Gabriel.”

“Good.”

“Do you believe?” she repeated.

“I agree with Voltaire.”

“Who said what?”

“That the concept of being bom twice is really no more surprising than being bom once.”

She turned her head. His face was still shrouded in darkness, yet now she could see him much better.

“Hey, Terry!”

“You called, my dove?”

“Yeah, come in here a second, wouldjya?”

Freeboard was sitting at a desk in the library working with a small electronic calculator and a stack of recent real estate statistics. She wore thick-lensed reading glasses. Dare was in the Great Room in front of a stereo cabinet reading an album cover as Artie Shaw’s “Begin the Beguine” warmed the air. “What is it?” he called out. “Too loud? Do you want me to turn down the music?”

“No, I like it. Just get in here a second, Terry, would you?”

Dare placed the album down and approached. He wore jeans, a camel sweater and new white tennis shoes. He reached the desk and looked down at the Realtor. She continued to work at the calculator.

“You’re all fresh-eyed and loathsomely alert,” he remarked.

“Took a snooze. God, this Case must be getting to me, Terry. I dreamed I left my body and went traveling.”

“To where? Some construction site?”

“Very funny. I dunno. Someplace dark. A dark box.”

“Could be worse. So what’s up, my dear? What’s on your mind?”

“Today a holiday or something, Terry?”

“Why?”

“You tried calling anybody?”

“Don’t the phones work?” he asked.

“Yeah, they work,” she replied, “but I can’t get anyone to answer.”

“Don’t be silly. How on earth would they know who was calling?”

She looked up at him dismally for a moment, then returned to her work. “You can be such an asshole at times.”

“It’s a gift.”

“I’ve called the office nine times now,” she told him, “and the phone just keeps ringing and ringing. No service, no voice mail, no nothing.” She nodded her head toward a telephone receiver that lay on its side atop the desk. “You hear that? Twenty minutes.”

Dare picked up the receiver, put it to his ear and heard the distant, steady ringing at the end of the line. He frowned, then put the phone gently back on the desk. “Oh, well, it could be a bomb scare or something.”

“Or not. Same thing happens when I try to get an operator.
Shit!”
She ripped off a length of computer tape and crumpled it up in her fist. “Now I’ve got to do the freaking thing over!”

Dare stood pondering silently with his head down, his hands deep down in the pockets of his jeans. “God, I really miss the dogs,” he said wanly.

Freeboard punched at the calculator rapidly.

“Times one-oh-point seven two …”

Dare looked up as if in sudden realization and dismay.

“The dogs!” he exclaimed. “I forgot to bring the dogs!”

“No, you brought them,” said Freeboard.

Dare frowned, looking puzzled and uncertain. “No, the dogs aren’t here. I must have left them behind.”

“I could swear that you brought them,” Freeboard murmured distractedly as she punched in another set of numbers.

Uneasy, Dare looked down at the telephone receiver. “Begin the Beguine” had just ended, there was silence and the ringing at the end of the line seemed more resonant now, although somehow even farther away. Dare shook his head and bit his lip, then spoke quietly.

“How on earth could I have forgotten the dogs?”