Pike's Folly (16 page)

Pike cut out his clowning. “Allison, what's wrong? You look like hell,” he said.

She swallowed with effort. Her face was pale, and her skin felt clammy. “Oh, I'm okay. I just think the altitude's getting to me,” she said.

“Well, don't get sick on my nice new floor.” Pike didn't know what to do with her, so he said, “Why don't you take a walk? There's some fresh air near the back door.”

She nodded weakly and stumbled along to find a quiet spot to sit. Her joints hurt, and something in the back of her throat tasted corrosive. A chill came over her as the pounding in her head gradually died down a bit. With a shock, she realized her nose was bleeding.

4

One hundred fifty miles to the south, Celia Shriver picked up Henry Savage and drove him to Nathaniel Pike's old house in Little Compton, Rhode Island, through vineyards, fallow fields and ranchettes along the rural route leading into blackberry country. The house itself stood far back from the road and was shielded by a row of tall evergreens, some of which were dead. A low stone wall surrounded the property, giving it an uniquely New England character.

In the days since he'd arrived, Henry had had few opportunities to experience the real New England, apart from what Celia had shown him. Overall, the trip wasn't going well. The people he'd interviewed about Pike were wary of Henry's government credentials, and not even Celia could accept that there was anything more to him beyond what she thought of the agency he represented.

All of which frustrated him greatly. Henry wanted people to feel about their government as he had when he'd started working for it nearly three decades ago: that the United States, for all its faults, was still the most open and compassionate country in the world; that the men and women who comprised its agencies were not evil automatons with computer chips planted in their brains, merely fallible human beings whose faults were the result of their own personal limitations and not some overriding conspiracy within the system. If they fucked up seven times out of ten, it was only because that's what people did: fuck things up. In hospitals and muffler shops, loan offices and fast-food restaurants, the people of America were busy fucking things up, every hour, every second—putting the decimal point in the wrong place, giving you extra onions when you asked for extra pickles. Why should those same people expect a higher degree of competence from their government? Why, Henry wondered, blame
me
for everything?

Outside the house, he waited at a discreet distance as Celia rang the doorbell. She had a vague connection to the homeowner—they'd taught together at the Rhode Island School of Design—and had set up the appointment herself.

The man who answered the door was gray-haired and elderly, with a feeble squint that became more prominent the longer he stayed in the sunlight. Introducing himself as Parker—whether first name or last, Henry wasn't sure—he led them into the living room, where a tray with some cheese was set out, along with a stack of cocktail napkins. He'd made some effort to welcome his guests, and Henry assumed he didn't get out much.

“How long have you lived here?” Henry asked.

“Seven years, sir.” Parker's voice was as watery as his blue eyes, which looked disproportionately large behind his thick glasses. “We moved out of Providence shortly after my wife retired. Most of our friends thought we were pretty cuckoo when they heard whom we'd bought it from.” The thought of Nathaniel Pike brought a smile to his thin, creased lips. “I always say, if it weren't for Mr. Pike, we never could've afforded this place. The realtor's original asking price was way too high.”

Henry frowned. “Did you know the history of the house before you bought it?”

“Of course. It was in all the papers. Nathaniel Pike
this,
Nathaniel Pike
that.
He's quite an eccentric. I remember one time—”

Celia coughed impatiently. “Can we please stay on topic, gentlemen?”

A door at the back of the room opened, and a woman about Parker's age came in. “What kind of lies are you telling these people?” she asked him.

“Oh, the usual.” Parker's body language became more formal when he offered her his seat. “Mr. Savage, this is my wife, Barbara.”

She remained standing. Like Parker, she was gray-haired, but with a stronger, more compact build. She nodded at Henry, then acknowledged Celia by name.

“Barbara,” Celia said, “whose idea was it to buy this place, yours or your husband's?”

“Both of us. I had more questions about it than Parker did.”

Henry perked up. “Did you get any answers?”

“Not from Mr. Pike. But I found a few things out on my own.”

Her husband looked embarrassed. “Honey, it's not important.”

“I know it's not important, but the man might be interested.”

“What's this, Mrs. . . . ?” Henry's voice trailed off. He'd wanted to say Parker, but knew that wasn't right. Mrs. Parker? Parker Parker?

Barbara motioned for him to follow. “It's out back,” she said, then led him, Parker and Celia out the back door to a field behind the house. A gravel trail continued into the outlying woodlands, where many of the trees were still bare.

Henry turned around to look at the house. Its most distinguishing feature was the balcony on the second floor, which had no railing around it, just a low brick ledge about knee-high. The roof was dark brown, and the upstairs windows were all cut out of it, like eyeholes in a ski mask. For all its history, the house looked plain, even homely. Whatever mystery it contained didn't show on the surface.

Up ahead, Barbara left the trail and plunged straight into the woods, and within a few steps they reached a clearing where the ground was still covered with yellow and black leaves from the previous autumn. Barbara kicked them aside, and they swirled and blew against her legs.

“I did a little research,” she said. “Parker and I know a guy who collects old maps of southern New England. We were both out here six months ago.” Crouching, she pointed to a stone foundation, which the mossy undergrowth partially concealed. The stones described a perfect rectangle, with a single opening for a doorway.

“What is it?” Henry asked.

“A pen of some kind. A free-standing cellar. I'd guess it's about three hundred years old. These property lines haven't changed since the seventeen hundreds, so it's safe to say it's always been part of the estate.”

Celia stood in the center of the foundation. “It's big,” she said. “What do you suppose they kept in it?”

“Possibly dry goods. We're on an elevation, so the ground stays dry most of the year. They could've stored grain or cured meats, maybe even ammunition. Many of the wealthier families down in South County moved over to the East Bay to get away from the Narragansett Indians, and most of them kept an arsenal.”

Henry chipped away at the ground with his shoe. “There's probably some pretty heavy artillery under all this dirt.”

“I found something better. Look.” She pointed at a second pile of leaves, about twenty feet from the first. When they went over to it, they saw more rocks from the foundation lying in rubble. The dank smell of dirt and decaying wood was particularly strong here.

“Ruins,” Henry said. “I don't see the point, unless—”

“They're not ruins.” She hefted one of the smaller rocks. “Nathaniel Pike did this. I checked my friend's map against a more recent one. This building was still standing ten years ago. When Pike had the main house bulldozed, he tore down this pen, too.”

“So?”

“Why would someone go through the trouble of making an exact copy of a house, down to the last stick of furniture, except for this one structure?”

That question “why” again. It came up a lot where Pike was concerned.

“Maybe he just lost interest,” Celia suggested. “Pike's got the attention span of a two-year-old.”

Both women looked at Henry, who admitted, “I'm clueless. My only guess is that something bothered him about this place. Maybe that's why he sold it to you so cheaply. He wanted to get rid of it.”

Barbara said, “Oh, there's no doubt about that.”

They walked back to the house, where Henry thanked the old couple and left with Celia. Instead of heading directly back to Providence, they made a quick swing through the village square. Like many communities in the East Bay, Little Compton consisted of a small commons area lined with tiny markets and steepled churches, quaint and old-fashioned for these few short blocks. A brick-and-glass police station stood next to the firehouse around the corner from the high school and across the street from a green patch of cemetery. It was hard to believe that Providence was only thirty minutes away.

Celia parallel-parked in front of the town hall and squinted at her watch. “It's almost four. If we hurry, we can have a look at Federal Hill before the traffic picks up.”

Checking out Federal Hill—Providence's Italian district— probably made sense, but it wasn't what Henry was interested in now. “This'll just take a few minutes,” he said. “I want to find out who owned that house before Pike.”

Celia relented, and they climbed a short flight of steps to a door with a 9/11 memorial flag taped to the window. Once inside, they had trouble finding anyone to help them. The front desk was unattended, and when a receptionist came out of the ladies' room, she seemed at a loss as to where the town kept its records. Eventually, an older woman led them down a dark, mahogany-trimmed corridor to a surprisingly vast room marked Archives. A long worktable stood in the center of the room, under a wicker ceiling fan that remained motionless until the woman turned on the lights.

“Looks like we're the only ones here,” Henry observed.

“Only ones all week,” the woman said. “We're one of the smaller towns in the East Bay—probably the whole state. The population's held pretty steady so there's not much need to update the records more than once every few years.” She became rueful. “Mr. Pike, though, I know all about
that
guy.”

“So you spoke to him?”

“Many times. But I was as surprised as anyone else when I'd heard what he did to that house.”

“Didn't the town council object?”

“Nothing to object to. The house wasn't a landmark, so as far as we were concerned he was free to do whatever he wanted.”

Henry reached for a chair and slowly sank into it. “That seems odd to me. We just spoke to the house's current owners.”

“Yes, the Parkers,” she said.

His brain did a little flip. “That's right, the Parkers. They told us that the house—I mean, the original house—was three hundred years old. That should've qualified it for landmark status.”

“Not necessarily. As you know, Mr. . . . Savage, is it?” She tittered. “I like that. I hope you're
not
a savage.”

Henry smiled tolerantly, having heard worse. “Call me Henry.”

“Henry, fine. As you know, the National Register of Historic Places keeps a fairly strict watch over its membership. Most homes on the list are at least fifty years old. That's been the guideline for ages, and it's pretty rare that the Feds break their own rules. But it seems Mr. Pike didn't want to go through with the application process.”

“Why?” Celia asked. “Is it complicated?”

“It can be, depending on who your State Historic Preservation Officer is. Some of them like to inspect the properties themselves. They'd at least order a thorough investigation. Whatever documents pertained to the house would be catalogued, evaluated and eventually made public.”

“So Nathaniel Pike buys a three-hundred-year-old house,” Henry mused, “tears it down, then reconstructs it from new materials. Therefore it's no longer eligible for the register. It's a brand-new house.”

“Pretty crazy, huh? Here, let me see what else I've got on file.”

The woman left to pull a stack of records from the back room. While she was gone, Celia said, “It's just like Pike to pick a fight with the National Register. I'm sure this whole thing was done to spite the Reeses.”

“Why do you say that?” he asked.

She regarded him as one might a naive child. “Gregg's mother, Keeny, has been president of the State Historic Preservation Society for years. It's a passion of hers. If Keeny had wanted that house on the list, I can't imagine her just giving up on it—not without a good reason.”

The woman returned ten minutes later with a bundle of papers and set it on the table. The sheets were dog-eared—some yellowed, some not. The first few pages were out of order; Henry saw the names “Parker,” then “Pike,” then “Parker” again.

Celia peered over his shoulder. “What are we looking at?” she asked.

“That's all I could find,” the woman said. “The state passed a paper-reduction act, so it's liable to be incomplete.”

Leafing through the pages, Henry's eyes began to glaze over. Most of the sheets were records of local tax assessments and conveyed little of interest. “This is going to take awhile,” he sighed. “All I want to know is who owned that property before Pike.”

“That's simple,” she said brightly. “The Johnsons. Danny Johnson and Willie Johnson. They were brothers. Moved to California, I believe.”

Deeper into the stack, he came upon a reference to the Johnsons, whose tenure had been brief. “How long were the Johnsons in town?”

“Oh, since eighty-eight, eighty-nine, thereabouts. That's when I moved down from Boston. If I remember right, they were both interior designers.
Lots
of money, but of course you'd need it. This is an affluent community. I suppose that's what designers do—they buy houses, keep them for a couple of years, then turn 'em around for a profit.”

Thinking out loud, Henry said, “So, the Johnsons bought the place, sold it to Nathaniel Pike for a quick dollar, then Pike all but gave it to the Parkers, who've owned it for seven years. Who came before the Johnsons?”

“That's before my time. Ask me anything since eighty-eight, and I've got it down cold. Photographic memory, almost.” She didn't want to disappoint him, so she added, “I do remember talking to Willie Johnson once. He mentioned a name, but . . . nope, I lost it.”

Henry's patience with the town's primitive filing system was wearing thin. Back home, this information would've been stored in a database, and he could've found it without rummaging through so much moldy paperwork.

“It's probably nothing,” he said, “but I want to make sure that before we leave—” He froze. The name on the next page so startled him, it was as if Pike himself had snuck up from behind and tapped him on the shoulder.