Greely's Cove (47 page)

The lock should do nicely, he told himself. It was a strong one. Not strong enough, maybe, to hold back the thing that lived upstairs, should it ever want out, but certainly adequate to the task of confining a human being, even a very big and heavy one.

This thought gave him a little glimmer of anticipatory joy, and for a moment he forgot the igneous rash that covered his mouth and throat, the lumbering pain in his chest and the ache in his limbs. For the first time in what seemed an eternity, he felt compelled to treat himself to a good stiff drink.

Carl parked the Roadmaster well beyond the precariously leaning gateposts of Whiteleather Place, so that it could not be seen from the mansion. He trotted back along the graveled road to the fringes of the grounds, then left the road to make his way through the holly-choked woodline to a point where he could approach the house with minimum exposure. Though the afternoon sky was clear but for a few patches of cloud, there was a chill in the air that cut through his light jacket and the flannel shirt he wore beneath it. He shivered and wished that he had worn something heavier.

He was now conscious of why he had instinctively blanked his mind the very moment this idea came to him:
Jeremy could read his thoughts
—just as he had been able to read Nora Moreland’s mind. The fact that Jeremy had used the voice of Carl’s dead father as an instrument of pain was the proof, despite Renzy’s rational assertions to the contrary. By blanking his mind, Carl had hidden from Jeremy his intention to penetrate the secrets of Whiteleather Place.

And to do so covertly, if need be.

Why this new acceptance of Jeremy’s mind-reading ability did not terrify and appall him, Carl didn’t know. Maybe he was simply more afraid of losing his son than he was of some vague suggestion of supernatural power. He doubted not for a moment that he had any choice but to march on, to infiltrate the shadows of Whiteleather Place, regardless of what might wait there.

It would be a mission to get the lay of the land, to find out what he was up against. It meant trespassing at the very least, even breaking and entering, which he was fully ready to do if the need arose. To be caught and convicted probably meant that he could forget about practicing law in the great state of Washington ever again.

As he approached the house, dodging among trees and islands of shrubs, he saw that the grounds were in even worse shape than had been apparent from the drive. Vast invasions of morning glory and thistle had laid waste to the rolling lawn. The once-graceful madronas had become twisted skeletons, and the towering native pines were spires of yellow death, punky with rot. The breeze sighed forlornly through the lifeless shrubbery and rattled the dead trees as though to moum their passing. Even the
weeds
were dead, and not a single bird flitted overhead.

He crouched against the shadowed foundation of the east porch, feeling the coarse bite of cinnamon-colored brick through his thin jacket. He pondered tactics.

Going in through the front door seemed ill-advised, and he would have bet that it was locked anyway. Even if it was not locked, the warped old hinges were far too noisy to chance. He decided to try the rear door, which unfortunately was also locked. As were the glass-plated and curtained doors that gave onto the sun parlor in the southeast corner.

Carl crept down the rear again and ducked between the dead shrubbery and the foundation wall, needing a few moments to sort through his knowledge of the mansion and its grounds. His boyhood came back to him in gusts of mental wind—vivid memories of this house and the games that he had played within and near its walls.

He and Renzy and Stu are U.S. Army Rangers on the beach at Normandy, cowering under the Nazis’ withering machine-
j
gun fire from the cliffs above. The order comes from the Headquarters of Operation Overload: Scale the cliffs and take out the machine guns, no matter what the cost. “The success of the whole goddamn Allied invasion depends on you grunts, so move out!
”

With the fate of a hundred thousand Allied troops riding on their shoulders, Renzy and Stu and Carl scaled the “cliffs,” their toy weapons strapped to their backs, their official U.S. Army canteens banging against their hips. They pulled themselves ever higher into the branches of the madrona that stood near the porch of Whiteleather Place, up and up toward the balustraded balcony of Mrs. Dawkins’s sewing room, where an elite battalion of Hitler’s dreaded
Schutzstaffel
was dug in behind sandbags and concrete. Carl reached out from his perch on a creaking branch and gripped the old wooden railing, to hoist himself onto the balcony, selflessly braving a blizzard of hot lead. He and his buddies poured fire onto the German positions until their throats were sore from making shooting noises. But today—

“
Good job, men! It’s all over now, so you can take it easy for a while. We won!
”

Carl was breathing hard, his heartbeats thundering in his neck and temples, his head moist with sweat. Climbing madronas was a job for nine-year-old boys, not for lawyers in their late thirties. His hands were fiery and raw from the rough bark, and his muscles ached from unaccustomed stretching, bending, levering. But the lifeless tree had borne up under his weight, and he was still in one piece.

His spirits sank when he found that the French doors of the sewing room were locked. The thought of descending the way he had come caused him to try the old brass knob again. Locked, true, but there was give in the latching mechanism, a hint that just enough pressure might defeat the aged tumblers.

Carl wrapped both fists around the knob and twisted. It gave a little. He upped the pressure, feeling his face turn red, watching his hands turn bloodless white. The lock gave way with a clank that startled him, and he pulled back from the door to press his body against the flanking wall. He listened a full minute for the sound of investigating footsteps within, but heard only the wind wheezing around the terra-cotta inserts on the gables above his head.

He pushed open the doors and slipped inside. The room was dim—thanks to heavy drapes over the windows—and only sparsely furnished. Something in the air spoke to him of Alita Dawkins, the kindly woman who had done charity work in and around Greely’s Cove, who had hovered over Lorna during her pregnancy with Jeremy. Alita had brought some much-needed cheer into the Trosper household during those final, difficult weeks before Jeremy came into the world, helping with housework and cooking, giving Lorna charming little figurines that she had fashioned herself in a handicrafts class, and generally being on hand for comfort and good company.

He went deeper into the house, pausing before every door in the corridor to listen for life on the other side. He heard nothing. He came to a rear stairway, which offered an ascent to the third floor or a descent to a main-floor vestibule, which in turn gave onto the kitchen and a corridor leading to the front of the house. He crept lightly down the stairs to the vestibule, straining his ears for the slightest sound.

The huge kitchen, with its islands of countertops and cabinets, its gleaming pots and pans hanging from the ceiling, was empty of life, so he passed it by after quickly poking his head through the door. He went farther down the corridor and checked the dining room, which was a showcase of cherry antiques, but also deserted.

Next was the music room, where Renzy’s sister, Diana, had practiced her lessons on the Steinway concert grand that Ted had bought for her. The piano was silent and alone now, an ebony orphan.

Carl turned right into a branch of the corridor hung with placid, overly romantic landscapes—originals, no doubt, set in heavy gilt frames and probably valuable. He halted again and listened hard to the silence, since only a few steps more would bring him to the rear parlor, the room Hadrian Craslowe used as a personal office and the one in which Ted and Alita Dawkins had ended their lives with rat poison. This was likely where Jeremy’s therapy session was taking place. After glancing behind him to ensure that Mrs. Pauling was nowhere in sight, he moved forward and pressed his ear against the wooden door.

No sound. No droning, hypnotic voice, which he had expected to hear. No sound of Jeremy talking or answering questions, as would have seemed appropriate to “therapy.” Carl pressed his ear still harder to the wood, waited, put his hand to the tarnished brass knob, twisted it, and pushed. The door opened an inch, then wider, and Carl stared into dusky silence. He swept his gaze over the massive desk littered with ancient books, at the empty chairs, the cold fireplace, the tapestries of melancholy brocade, the porphyry busts and the thin rails of stained sunlight from the Dawkinses’ “prayer corner.”

Where the hell
is
everybody?

A glance at his watch told him that it was almost 1:25—scarcely twenty-five minutes since he had dropped his son here. He mulled the possibility that Dr. Craslowe and Mrs. Pauling might have taken Jeremy away from Whiteleather Place, where and for what reason he could not guess. But they could only have done so during the few minutes since he had entered the house, because Carl would have seen or heard their departure when he was outside. More likely they had taken Jeremy to another room in the house. Daunting a task as it was, he decided to search the entire mansion, from the basement to the third floor, if necessary, until he found his son.

As he turned to withdraw from Dr. Craslowe’s personal office, he caught a fleeting impression of movement out of the corner of his eye, down the dusky corridor and to his left, back toward the kitchen. He halted, waiting for the accompanying sound, footfalls, breathing, or the rustle of clothing. The house remained silent as a tomb. He went back the way he had come, walking soundlessly on the dense Persian carpet, and halted at the corner where he thought he had seen something. Gingerly he poked his head around the corner. And saw no one.

He moved around the corner, eyes wide in the spare light that came from the open kitchen and the stairwell beyond the vestibule. As he passed by the kitchen door, he caught another hint of movement in the direction of the butler’s pantry, something fluid and rusty in color, airy like crepe paper. Again he halted, but not as long this time. He spun on the heel of his shoe and plunged into the kitchen, intending to get a clear look at whoever had darted into the shadows. But the pantry was deserted. Whoever had been there must have fled down the rear stairs to the basement. His nose picked up a rotting odor that dissipated with the movement of his own body through the still air.

The stairwell to the basement was a cave of esophageal gloom, and Carl waited a moment for his eyes to adjust before taking the first step downward. As he was lowering a foot to begin his descent, a familiar old voice spoke in his mind.

Oh, this is real nice, Old Carl. You’ve committed the crime of breaking and entering, jeopardizing your lawyer’s ticket, your career, and the new life you’ve wanted so bad—and for what? Because of some half-baked idea about discovering what’s wrong with Jeremy, some nutty suspicion that Dr. Craslowe hasn’t leveled with you. Do you have to work at screwing up, Old Carl, or does it just come naturally?

He froze again. He needed to get his emotional ducks in a row, to be certain of what he was doing and why, for the repercussions of being caught here could indeed be nasty.

Carl could not turn back now, he knew. He felt, more than knew, that Craslowe was at the root of his and Jeremy’s miseries, that nothing substantial could come from merely asking questions. More than this, he felt that deep inside his son lived an ordinary little boy who was not eloquent or prodigious, who did not speak with an aristocratic British accent or read minds, who if given the chance could find simple joy in rock and roll and video games. This was the son whom he loved, whom he meant to save.

He took that first step downward into the dark, and then the next, feeling the air cool as he descended, wishing he had a flashlight. At the bottom of the stairs he became aware of a yellow incandescence from a bare light bulb that hung from the low ceiling, some two dozen steps farther down the passage. He made for it quietly, passing by an iron-grated door that led to the wine cellar. To his right was a wall of grainy foundation stone that gave off the damp smell of earth. To his left were stacks of wooden crates and cardboard boxes, some of which were imprinted with names like
Bekins
and
Florida Oranges
and
Del Monte.

Like the basements of most old houses, this one had not been meant for living, but rather for storing wine and vegetables and little-used odds and ends. It was dark and damp, a place more suited to rats and spiders than human beings. A network of naked water pipes traveled along the low ceiling, forcing Carl to duck now and again as he drew nearer the light bulb, which was where the passage turned to the left.

He made the turn and walked a path between two mountains of junk that included old bicycles and tricycles, lawn mowers and gardening tools, boxes brimming with moldy toys from someone’s childhood. There were kitchenwares and shapeless furniture, statuary and baby cribs, lamp shades and dusted-over pictures in tarnished frames. Carl passed under an arch of heavy masonry into another room, smaller than the first but not as tightly crammed with junk. He remembered that this was the site of the massive old boiler that heated the house. He could just make out its shape, hugging the left wall like a giant squid made of cast iron.

To the right and a few more steps ahead was another brick archway, which—according to his boyhood memory—led into a room that he and his buddies had always thought special. On one wall was a mysterious steel door that would have looked more at home on a bank vault. It boasted the biggest padlock Carl had ever seen.

I want you boys to stay away from that door
, Ted Dawkins had more than once told his son and his two pals, Carl and Stu.
There’s nothing in there for kids, believe me.

So, naturally, they had visited the door often. They had pushed their ears against the chilly metal and tried unsuccessfully to scare each other with claims about hearing unspeakable horrors on the other side. They had even tested the lock now and then, hoping against hope to gain access to the mysteries that lay within. But the door had never given up its secrets, never even budged.