by John Saul
“I was, too,” Eric said softly. “And when I woke up I felt like I was all covered with blood.”
Kent Newell’s piercing gaze shifted from Tad to Eric. “What?” he demanded. “You’re saying you killed the cat?”
“I don’t know!” Eric said. “I don’t think so, but—”
“But what?” Kent pressed. “So if it wasn’t you, who was it? Tad or me?” When neither Tad nor Eric replied, Kent answered his own question. “Well, it wasn’t. What’d one of us do? Sleepwalk down here, get the scalpels, go find the cat, kill her, and then go back to bed? That’s just stupid!” Yet even as he spoke, Kent’s voice once again gave the lie to the certainty expressed by the words themselves.
Once again the silence seemed to stretch into infinity.
“Okay,” Kent said when he could stand the silence no longer. “Let’s go take a look.”
“At what?” Eric asked, though he already knew the answer.
“The stuff,” Kent replied, and turning away from the table, he threaded his way through the jumble of boxes to the sheet of plywood and pushed it aside. “Let’s see if the stuff is where we left it.”
Wordlessly, Eric and Tad followed Kent into the hidden room.
The darkness seemed to Eric to be filled with whispering voices, but whatever words they might be speaking were lost on the edges of his consciousness.
He lit the lanterns.
The voices faded away.
The medical bag was still on the table, exactly where they had left it, seemingly untouched.
“Dr. Darby paid for those scalpels with British money,” Tad said softly, his eyes fixing on the satchel. “Remember?”
Kent looked over at him. “So what are you saying? Those scalpels actually belonged to Jack the Ripper?”
Tad hesitated, then shook his head. “Nobody even really knows who Jack the Ripper was.”
“Maybe Darby found out,” Kent said. “Maybe that’s why he paid so much for them.”
Eric was barely listening. The bag, still closed, seemed to be drawing him to it. The fingers of his right hand were trembling, and as he stared at the bag, he could once again feel the cold metal of its contents in his hand. “I’ve got to see them,” he whispered. “I’ve got see if there’s blood on them.” Finally, he managed to look away from the bag and turned to Kent and Tad. “And if there is, we’re bricking this room up again, and we’re never coming anywhere near it afterward.” His eyes moved from Kent Newell to Tad Sparks, then back to Kent. “Deal?”
Kent and Tad exchanged a glance, then Kent spoke for both of them. “Deal.”
Eric bent over the old medical bag.
“Go ahead,” Kent whispered. “Open it.”
Eric swallowed hard, trying to rid himself of the lump that seemed to fill his throat. The room suddenly seemed too small, too close, and despite the light from the lanterns, the indistinct voices were back, humming in his ears.
“Open the bag,” Tad urged. Eric’s gaze flicked toward him, and in the split second in which their gazes connected, Tad saw something in Eric’s eyes that made him take a step back.
Eric reached for the worn leather valise, his hands clammy, his fingers still trembling.
He drew it across the table until it was directly in front of him.
“Thirty-four thousand pounds,” Tad said quietly. “That’s a lot of money.”
Eric took a deep breath, snapped open the catch, lifted the leather strap, and opened the hinged mouth of the bag until it yawned wide.
Kent lifted a lantern and all three boys peered inside.
The scalpels gleamed, their blades glittering in the light.
No blood.
They were clean and shiny.
As clean and shiny as if they were brand new.
Eric leaned against the table, his eyes closed, listening, trying to concentrate.
He could almost make out what the voices were trying to say to him.
Almost, but not quite.
“We’ve got to know all of it,” he whispered. “We’ve got to find out what Dr. Darby was doing in here.”
MARCI’S CHIN QUIVERED as she set a worn catnip mouse on top of the shoe-box casket and sprinkled a handful of soil on top of it, then slipped her hand into her mother’s as Eric shoveled more dirt into Tippy’s grave.
“We couldn’t find anything to make a headstone with,” Merrill said as the little grave quickly filled, “so we’re scattering rose petals.”
“I’m going to make a cross later,” Marci said.
Eric nodded, and Marci picked up the basket of fresh rose petals she had spent the last hour gathering and carefully dropped them on top of the freshly turned earth, upending the basket to shake the last ones out. “Good-bye, Tippy,” she whispered, and once more clung to her mother’s hand.
“Good-bye, Tippy,” Eric and Merrill echoed as Merrill stroked her daughter’s hair.
“See?” Merrill went on, as Eric started toward the carriage house, the shovel held against his shoulder like a rifle. “Now Tippy will always smell the roses.” She gave Marci one more squeeze, then raised her voice enough for Eric to hear. “Fresh chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen.” As he waved an acknowledgment, she gently turned Marci away from the grave and started back toward the house.
A SHIVER RAN THROUGH Eric as he came to the door to the storeroom.
He paused.
Maybe he should let Kent and Tad go to the library by themselves, while he spent the afternoon in the secret room, quietly exploring the contents of the boxes and trying to decipher the cryptic entries in the journal.
He reached for the doorknob, his fingers already tingling in anticipation of touching the hard brass.
On the edges of his consciousness he could hear a whispering sound, almost like voices. Though the words—if they really were words—were unintelligible, they seemed to be pleading with him.
Pulling him closer.
His fingers closed on the doorknob.
The room—and the room beyond—wanted him….
The shovel slipped from Eric’s grasp, and when it crashed to the concrete hallway, startled him back to reality.
He checked his watch. It was only three-thirty.
At least he hadn’t lost track of time, and Tad had said the library stayed open until nine in the summer. Turning away from the door to the storeroom, he hurried to the tool room and replaced the shovel.
Back at the house, he found his mother and sister having cookies and milk at the kitchen table. He washed his hands, then went over and picked up a cookie from the plate in the center of the table. “I’m going over to Kent’s,” he said, snagging two more cookies, hesitating, then taking a fourth. “For Kent,” he added, though no one had challenged his taking all but three of the cookies left on the plate.
“Oh, honey,” Merrill said, putting a hand on his arm. “Couldn’t you just stay here with us?”
Eric turned back. “Why?”
Merrill’s brow creased with worry. “Because of all that’s happened. I just thought it would be nice if you were here with Marci and me.” And besides, she added silently, I don’t want to be alone when it gets dark.
“But Kent and Tad and I were going to the library.”
Merrill stared at her son. “The library?” she repeated. “I don’t believe it—Tad Sparks, maybe. But Kent? The library? During summer vacation?” She eyed Eric. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” he replied quickly casting around in his mind for something his mother might buy. “Kent said a lot of girls hang out there,” he finally said, though Kent had never said anything of the sort.
His mother seemed to accept it, but said, “I still think you should stay home today.”
Suddenly he understood, and met his mother’s gaze squarely. “You’re just afraid something else is going to happen. And because you’re afraid, I get punished.”
Her gaze dropped away from his. “I’m asking you nicely to please stay home.”
&n
bsp; Eric slid into one of the kitchen chairs. “And I’m asking you to please let me go hang out with my friends. If Dad were here, I’d get to go.” He could see his mother wavering. “Let’s call and ask him.”
Merrill hesitated, then reached for the cordless phone and dialed. She’d hoped Eric would have agreed to stay home, and then maybe her fears over being in the big house at night wouldn’t escalate into another series of horrible, interminable sleepless hours. She felt tears building up, but didn’t want to cry in front of the kids.
And she sure didn’t want to cry on the telephone to Dan, who answered on the first ring.
“Dan Brewster.”
“Hi, honey.” Not bad! Barely a quaver.
Eric bit into a cookie while Marci sat with her hands in her lap, a sad look on her face.
Merrill recounted Tippy’s funeral and Eric’s request to go out. “I just don’t think I can do it, Dan. I can’t be alone up here all summer while you’re in the city.” In spite of her efforts, her voice started trembling. “I’m thinking I want to pack up and come home.”
“Slow down, sweetie,” Dan said. “There’s nothing wrong with Eric spending the afternoon with his friends. It’s summer.”
“But I’m afraid—”
“I know,” Dan cut in. “You’re afraid. You’re nervous. But that’s no reason to spoil everybody’s summer. Call Ellen or Ashley and get together. Don’t stay in the house. Take Marci and go somewhere.”
“But I hate it up here alone,” Merrill whispered fiercely.
“You’ve only been alone for twenty-four hours.”
Merrill chewed her lip.
“And you’re not alone. You’ve got the kids. Marci’s having a great time, and so is Eric. It’s sad about Tippy, but those things happen. You know that.”
“I know, but—”
“We’re not giving up the house,” Dan said quietly. “I’ll be up at the end of the week for the Fourth of July weekend. And Marci’s going to be in the parade, remember? I know you, sweetheart—you don’t want to spoil that for her.”
Merrill sighed, not only accepting defeat, but knowing that her husband was right. “I don’t,” she finally said. “And I won’t. I guess I just miss you.”
“I know, honey. I miss you, too. Tell Eric to go have fun and be home by dark. And you find yourself something fun to do, too, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Gotta run. Love you.”
Dan clicked off.
“Love you, too,” she said to the hollow silence of the broken connection. Composing herself, she pressed the Off button and turned to Eric. “Okay,” she said, forcing a bright smile. “Just please be home by dark, all right?”
Eric paused on his way out to kiss her cheek. “Thanks, Mom. And thanks for the cookies. They’re good.”
“You might as well take the rest for Tad.” This time her smile was genuine.
Eric took the last three cookies from the plate and headed out the back door.
ERIC AND KENT followed Tad as he wound his way through the maze of heavy oak reading tables toward the archway that led to the large room that was filled to overflowing with row after row of tall bookcases. Beyond the last row, they came to the room that held the periodicals, including bound copies of the town’s weekly newspaper, the Phantom Lake Times, going back ten years. They were just where the librarian had said they would be.
Tad ran his finger along the shelf of bound newspapers until he came to the large, heavy volume that was dated seven years earlier. He pulled it off the shelf and carried it to the scarred wooden table in the center of the room.
“Where do we start?” Kent asked.
Tad rolled his eyes. “At the beginning, of course. Except that if he went out in his boat, it had to be at least March or April, right? Otherwise the lake would still have been frozen.” He opened the cover and began carefully turning the pages until he came to the issue from mid-March. “And it’ll be on the front page. Right? I mean, Darby was one of the most important people in town, wasn’t he?” As Eric nodded, Tad continued turning the pages.
Nothing through March, or April, or May.
June and July showed nothing, either.
Then, in August, Kent reached out and stopped Tad from turning the next page. “There it is,” he said. “August eighth. Front page, just like you said.”
The three boys huddled close and began reading.
PHANTOM LAKE MAN MISSING
Dr. Hector Darby appears to be missing after a boat belonging to him was found abandoned near Hunter’s Reserve last Wednesday. Mr. Charles Spencer reported first seeing it on Monday, then again on Tuesday morning. Spencer himself thought he recognized it as belonging to Dr. Darby, and reported the boat’s presence to Sheriff Floyd Ruston only after getting no response when he tried to contact Dr. Darby at Pinecrest, Darby’s residence of the last twenty years.
Sheriff Ruston went to Pinecrest to investigate and found newspapers piled in the doorway and an overflowing mailbox. Ruston entered the property, found no sign of Darby, but says he found no evidence of foul play. Though with no evidence of where Dr. Darby might be, Ruston is unwilling to launch a full-scale investigation, at least as of this date.
“Though Dr. Darby often stopped the newspaper and had his mail held when he left home, it wasn’t a consistent habit,” Ruston said. “Therefore, for the moment at least, I’m assuming that this time he simply didn’t make the arrangement, and in his absence, the wind blew the boat loose. If he hasn’t been heard from within a day or so, then of course I’ll look further into the matter.”
The boat was towed back to Pinecrest and secured in its boathouse.
When asked if there could be any connection between Dr. Darby’s disappearance and the discovery of Tiffany Hanover’s body found July 15, floating near Hunter’s Reserve, Ruston brushed the question aside, saying only that “I don’t even think that one’s worth a ‘no comment.’”
When he finished reading, Eric studied the photo accompanying the story. Dr. Darby appeared to be an ordinary, nondescript man wearing glasses and a business suit.
“Weird,” Kent said, rereading the last paragraph. “Go back to July fifteenth.”
Tad flipped the pages back three weeks.
“What do you know,” Kent whispered, staring at the headline for that week’s paper. “I never even heard about this one.”
BODY FOUND FLOATING IN LAKE
Fishermen reported finding the body of a young woman floating near Hunter’s Reserve early this morning, according to Sheriff Floyd Ruston. She was not immediately identified, nor was the cause of death known.
“We’ve had no missing persons reports,” Sheriff Ruston said, “but she hadn’t been in the water very long. I’m sure we’ll learn something very soon.”
The girl’s body was removed to the county coroner’s office.
The boys scanned through the rest of the article, but there was no further information about the body; just a lot of warnings about water safety, not only from the sheriff, but from half a dozen other people as well.
“So somewhere between here and August eighth, they identified her,” Eric said when they’d all finished the story.
“Maybe she just drowned,” Tad suggested.
“Or maybe something else happened to her,” Kent said, and began slowly turning the pages once more.
They found the story in the issue from the following week.
BODY IDENTIFIED AS SUMMER VISITOR
The young woman found floating in Phantom Lake near Hunter’s Reserve last week has been identified as Tiffany Hanover, granddaughter of Luther and Iris Hanover of Milwaukee and Phantom Lake. She had been spending the summer with her grandparents at their summer home on the west bank.
Tiffany, 18, graduated as valedictorian of her high school class last month and was slated to begin college this fall at Northwestern University in Chicago, where she had intended to enroll in a premed course of study.
Though sources close to
the investigation say the cause of death appears to be drowning, the investigation of the case has not yet been closed.
The Hanovers have returned to Milwaukee to be with their son, Robert G. Hanover, and his wife, the former Lynette Giles, also of Milwaukee.
Tad turned page after page as all three boys scanned each issue for a resolution to either Darby’s disappearance or the girl’s death, but they found nothing. Finally closing the heavy volume, Tad looked up at Eric and Kent. “We don’t know much more about Darby now than we did when we got here,” he said.
“No,” Kent said, “but now we have Tiffany Hanover, too. And doesn’t it seem weird that the paper would say her drowning and Darby’s disappearance weren’t connected? I mean, doesn’t that make it sound like people must have thought they were? Otherwise, why even mention it?”
Eric suddenly remembered the woman behind the desk who had told them where to find the old newspapers. Certainly she looked like she’d been working in the library for a whole lot longer than seven years—in fact, she could have been the original librarian when the place had been built almost a century earlier. “How about asking the librarian?” he suggested.
They replaced the book and approached the big mahogany counter just inside the front door, where Miss Edna Bloomfield—identified by a neat brass nameplate set discreetly by the book-return box—was sorting catalog cards in a long narrow drawer.
“Are you boys finding what you’re looking for?” she asked in a whisper, peering at them over the top of her wire-rimmed glasses. Though her hair was twisted up at the nape of her neck in a tight bun and she wore a long-sleeve dress that was buttoned all the way up to her chin, there was a glimmer of a smile in her eyes that belied the severity of her dress and hairdo.
“I’m living at the house called Pinecrest this summer,” Eric said, “and we were interested in finding out something about Dr. Darby.” He glanced at Tad and Kent, then spoke again. “I mean, like, what happened to him? Did he really just disappear?”
“And we’re wondering about Tiffany Hanover, too,” Kent added. “Did she really just drown?”
