Behind the Walls

by Merry Jones

  A Selection of Recent Titles by Merry Jones

  The Harper Jennings Series

  SUMMER SESSION *

  BEHIND THE WALLS *

  THE NANNY MURDERS

  THE RIVER KILLINGS

  THE DEADLY NEIGHBORS

  THE BORROWED AND BLUE MURDERS

  * available from Severn House

  BEHIND THE WALLS

  A Harper Jennings Mystery

  Merry Jones

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First world edition published 2012

  in Great Britain and in the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

  Copyright © 2012 by Merry Jones.

  All rights reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Jones, Merry Bloch.

  Behind the walls.

  1. Women veterans–Fiction. 2. Iraq War, 2003–

  Veterans–Fiction. 3. Post-traumatic stress disorder–

  Patients–Fiction. 4. Cornell University–Employees–

  Fiction. 5. Antiquities, Prehistoric–America–Catalogs–

  Fiction. 6. Blessing and cursing–Fiction. 7. Suspense

  fiction.

  I. Title

  813.6-dc22

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-202-3 (ePub)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8118-2 (cased)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being

  described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this

  publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons

  is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  To Robin, Baille and Neely

  Acknowledgments

  In writing Behind the Walls, I had support and encouragement from lots of people, too many to list. But special thanks to:

  my agent, Rebecca Strauss at McIntosh and Otis;

  my editor, Rachel Simpson Hutchens at Severn House Publishers;

  my fellow Liars: Greg Frost, Jon McGoran, Jonathan Maberry, Don Lafferty, Kelly Simmons, Marie Lamba, Dennis Tafoya, Keith Strunk, Solomon Jones, Ed Pettit, Keith DeCandido;

  my friends and family, especially Robin, Baille and Neely.

  October, 1989

  The crate was smaller than most, simply marked ‘Utah’. No dates, like all the others. No specific dig sites either. Odd; Professor Langston was obsessive about labeling his collection. Maybe the labels were inside, taped to the lid? Or maybe they’d been lost.

  Carla Prentiss sighed, glanced at her watch. Almost four. Without a list, there probably wouldn’t be time to identify and catalogue the contents before sunset, and she didn’t want to be caught there after dark. The professor’s rambling old Victorian mansion was spooky enough in daylight. The place had been built in the early twentieth century by some hermetic silent movie star whose name she couldn’t remember but who, in his paranoia, had designed the place with secret passages and hidden vaults, setting it deep in the woods outside Ithaca where, even now, it had no near neighbors. When he’d offered her the assistantship, Professor Langston had told her with some pride that his house was probably haunted.

  ‘Haunted?’ she’d parroted.

  ‘Its inhabitants have led, shall we say . . . uncommon lives.’ He’d smiled, wheezing heavily as air forced its way through his dense nose hairs. ‘In the twenties, a young woman – a starlet named Chloe Manning – simply disappeared during a visit. Some say she’s still in the house, wandering the passages in the walls.’

  Carla had blinked at the walls of the study. Wondered if the bookshelves concealed secret doors. And bodies.

  Under his white, unruly brows, Langston’s eyes had twinkled, amused. He’d lowered his voice to a gravelly whisper. ‘Some years later, a maid suddenly fell or jumped – or was pushed – over the balcony. Broke her neck. And then, in the fifties, well . . .’ His eyes had narrowed, drifted across his study.

  ‘What?’ she’d pressed him. ‘What happened in the fifties?’

  He’d drawn a dramatic breath. ‘Well, these things happen, even today.’

  What things? She’d waited for him to explain.

  ‘Sometimes men run amok. They snap and release pent-up aggressions on to their family members.’

  ‘Professor, what happened?’

  ‘Well.’ He’d cleared his throat, reached for a pipe. ‘The man of the house – Fredericks was his name. One night, he simply hacked his wife and three children to death. Damaged the walls a bit, too.’

  Carla had felt a chill, held her breath.

  ‘But it worked out well for me; I was able to acquire the place for a very reasonable price afterwards.’ Professor Langston had smiled slyly. Pleased with himself.

  Carla, of course, didn’t believe in ghosts or haunting. As an archeologist, she believed in history. In science. And so, despite the professor’s grisly tales, she was thrilled at the opportunity to work with him, cataloguing the massive and disorganized collection of artifacts he’d accumulated in digs from Peru to Pennsylvania over the course of some five decades. Now in his seventies, Professor Langston had decided to write his will. And the Archeology Department, hoping that he’d leave a generous part of his conglomeration to the university, had offered to pay a graduate student to help him get it organized and itemized.

  And that graduate student, Carla Prentiss, welcomed the income that came with the assistantship, not to mention the chance to see – to actually touch and examine – rare Pre-Columbian relics. So she overlooked the dusty cobwebs, eerie history and damp chill of the house. Not for the first time, she shook off the sense that she wasn’t alone, and focused on the crate in front of her.

  Utah.

  An hour before dark. Maybe there would be time to do this one crate, depending on what was inside. Probably, it wouldn’t take long. It wasn’t heavy, might not have much in it. Glancing again at her watch, she reached for a lever to pry up the lid. As she wedged the tool in-between slats of wood, the light shifted. A shadow fell over her from behind.

  ‘Professor?’ She turned, expecting to see him. But, of course, he wasn’t there – Professor Langston hobbled with a cane. Made thudding sounds as he walked. Carla listened, heard no footsteps. Nothing. Just her own breathing and the silence of dust.

  Uneasy, Carla surveyed the storage room. Saw nobody, just rows of metal shelves holding oddly shaped packages. Stacks of wooden crates and cardboard barrels lining the walls. The door slightly ajar. The row of cut-glass windows, revealing slivers of orange and red treetops, a gray cloud crossing above them.

  The cloud – that was it. It must have blocked the sunlight for a moment, casting a shadow, darkening the room. That was all. She needed to relax.

  Reinserting the lever into the crate, Carla pushed down on it to force up the lid. Her stomach growled with the exertion, complaining that she’d skipped lunch. Reminding her that it was her turn to cook dinner. Curried chicken with apricots. She could almost smell it.

  Or no – wait. The smell wasn’t her imagination. Nor was it curried chicken. What was it? She sniffed the crate where she�
�d loosened the lid, got a whiff of wood shavings and musty air. She straightened, sniffing, but couldn’t figure out the source of the scent, so she continued her work. Inserting the lever on the other end of the crate. Pushing until the lid came up with a squeak of resistance. Or was the floor creaking? Carla looked around again. The smell was stronger. Musky and warm. Smoky. Sweet. Like incense? Or cheap cologne?

  She thought of that starlet – Chloe somebody? The one who’d disappeared years ago, whose ghost might live in the walls. Oh God, was she smelling Chloe’s stale perfume?

  Ridiculous. Even so, the hairs on Carla’s neck stood on alert, and she shivered at the idea. Probably, she reasoned, the odor was drifting up from downstairs. One of the professor’s sons must be burning incense or scented candles. Or some exotic wood in the fireplace. That was all.

  Calmer, Carla turned back to the crate just as another shadow fell over her. Not a cloud, this time. No, this shadow flickered from over head. And something darted above her – a bird? Lord, was there a bird trapped in the room? Cautiously, Carla looked up to see a tiny creature, flapping its wings, disappearing behind a beam high on the ceiling.

  Damn. A bat? The house had bats? Cringing, she reached for the light switch and flipped it on. Examined the ceiling again. Saw no sign of the thing, couldn’t see where it might have escaped. But, fine. Bats were harmless. They ate bugs, didn’t they? Weren’t they a sign of a healthy ecology? In an old house like the professor’s, they probably weren’t unusual, probably came out as the sun went down. No reason for alarm.

  A little on edge, Carla continued her work. Carefully, she lifted the lid, set it on the table beside the crate. And looked inside.

  When the first blow struck, she went down hard, her head banging the table. She tried to get up, but she was dizzy, blinded by pain. Carla huddled, protecting herself, trying to escape sharp swiping blows. Twisting, she had the impression of a large cat – a jaguar? Or no. A man? She crawled, kicking, and, even as her flesh tore, she told herself that the attack was not possible. There was no such thing as a man who was also a cat. But this not-quite-man-not-quite-cat kept ripping at her. Digging at her chest.

  Fading, Carla had three final thoughts. The first was that she never should have stayed to open the Utah crate.

  The second was that she was having her final thoughts.

  The third was that, damn, she wouldn’t get to have that curried chicken.

  October, 2011

  At first, they didn’t hear the banging. Maybe they mistook it for loose garbage cans clattering around in the driveway. Or maybe it got lost in the screaming howls of wind that gusted against the house, buzzing through cracks in the window frames, drowning out all other sounds.

  Vicki Manning, clearing dinner plates, waited for the wind to subside before speaking. ‘Wow. That was almost as loud as Trent’s snoring.’

  Harper Jennings laughed, nodding. She’d heard those snores; Vicki’s husband could shake walls when he slept.

  ‘Need. Putty. Fix.’ Hank Jennings put down his wine glass. He’d cooked again, had become quite adept in the kitchen in the last year. ‘In. Sulate. Before winter.’

  ‘Put it on the to-do list.’ Harper picked up a salad bowl, planted a kiss on his cheek on her way to the kitchen sink. She had become accustomed to Hank’s speech; he had aphasia due to brain injuries from a fall from the roof. Most of the time, she understood his meaning perfectly, and she’d convinced herself that his speech was steadily improving.

  Vicki took Hank’s dish. ‘The pasta was yummy, Hank. Thanks.’ She’d been eating with them on Tuesday nights while Trent taught an evening class. ‘You should open a restaurant—’

  Her voice was drowned out by rapping sounds and another anguished groan from the windows. Tree branches blew against the house, scraped against glass panes.

  Hank shook his head. ‘House com. Plaining. Old. Arth. Ritis.’

  Indeed. The house was old, over a hundred years. And he and Harper had been renovating it, by themselves. To Harper, the process seemed endless, as if every job they completed led to ten more. But, with Hank’s aphasia making him unable to teach, the endless work wasn’t so bad; rehabbing gave Hank a focus. Something positive to work on.

  Vicki poured herself the last of the wine as Harper washed pots and pans, gazing out the window into the darkness. Hedges, firs, branches of the oak tree bent to the wind. Night came early, felt stark and dangerous. But lights from the fraternity house next door spilled into the yard, defining shapes. Reminding her that she was safe, that the shadows held no snipers. That she was home in Ithaca not back in Iraq, surrounded by war and terror.

  ‘Where’s a towel? I’ll dry.’

  ‘There was one on the—’ She stopped mid-sentence, interrupted by loud banging. It didn’t sound like the wind. It came from the front door.

  ‘Trent maybe?’ Hank turned toward the sound. The dish towel was draped on his shoulder.

  ‘Can’t be,’ Vicki glanced at the clock. ‘He’s still teaching.’

  Harper grabbed the dish towel off of Hank, tossed it at Vicki as she headed for the door. The banging grew louder, more rapid. Urgent. Harper hurried, hearing shouts.

  ‘Harper? Are you in there?’

  She didn’t recognize the voice.

  Harper stopped beside the door, cautious. Old instincts, trained responses.

  ‘Who?’ Hank came up behind her, limping slightly.

  Harper turned on the porch light, peered through the window. And saw Zina Salim. Zina Salim? Really? Why? But there she was, her hair flying in the wind, her dark eyes wide. Her fist raised to pound some more.

  Harper swung the door open, and Zina rushed in, watching over her shoulder, repeating, ‘Thank God. Thank God. Couldn’t you hear me? I thought you’d never answer.’

  Harper was speechless. But what was Zina Salim doing there? She and Zina weren’t friends; they politely tolerated each other. Within the Archeology Department, they were staunch rivals, earning their PhDs under the same professors. Competing for assistantships, fellowships and teaching assignments, attention. And annoyingly, whatever Harper applied for, Zina Salim seemed to get. She was politically connected, the darling of the department – especially of Professor Wiggins, the graduate coordinator. There had been rumors, and more than once, Harper had wondered if a romance were involved.

  ‘Thank God, Harper,’ Zina breathed, rushing into the house. ‘Thank God you’re home.’

  ‘Come. In.’ Hank welcomed her, scanning the front yard before shutting the door.

  Zina was trembling as Harper led her into the living room, where Vicki stood staring, sipping her wine. ‘Here, sit down. What happened, Zina? Are you OK?’

  Panting, Zina sank on to the sofa, covered her face with her hands.

  ‘Zina?’ Harper watched her.

  Zina hugged herself, silent and shivering. She seemed small, childlike. Harper pulled an afghan off the arm of the sofa, wrapped it around Zina’s shoulders and sat beside her. Zina stared warily at Vicki.

  ‘This is our friend, Vicki Manning,’ Harper reassured her. ‘Vicki, this is my colleague, Zina Salim.’

  ‘Warm get. Now.’ Hank threw some logs into the fireplace. Added some kindling. Zina watched him, transfixed, fingering an ornate bangle bracelet.

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ Vicki mouthed.

  Harper shrugged, rolled her eyes. She thought Zina coy, manipulative. Affected, with her British accent and aristocratic attitudes. For everything she did, she seemed to have an ulterior motive. Harper didn’t trust her, doubted she’d reveal her actual purpose for coming over. But clearly, she was frightened.

  Hank’s fire blazed, toasting the room. Zina watched the flames, became more collected. ‘Better now?’ he asked.

  ‘Thank you,’ Zina attempted a smile. She slipped her bracelet on and off, nervously. ‘This is so nice of you, opening your home to me.’ She spoke in a sweet, controlled tone. ‘I’m better now. Probably I was overreacting. I mean, obviou
sly, I was. Just being silly. I hope I didn’t interrupt your—’

  ‘What happened, Zina?’ Harper cut in.

  Zina looked away, stared at the fire. Harper, Hank and Vicki stared at Zina. Moments passed. Finally, Zina turned to Harper.

  ‘Harper,’ her eyes were doubtful. ‘Do you believe in the Nahual?’

  ‘The Nahual.’ Harper repeated.

  Zina nodded, eyes shifting.

  ‘In what?’ Vicki asked.

  ‘Shape-shifters.’ Harper watched Zina, tried not to smirk.

  ‘No – I know it sounds crazy. That’s why I said I was overreacting. It was nothing—’ She attempted a laugh, failed. Started to stand.

  ‘Uh uh.’ Harper grabbed her arm, pulled her back to the sofa. ‘You’re not leaving until you explain what the hell you’re talking about.’

  ‘Tell us.’ Hank took a seat by the fire, waiting.

  Vicki stepped closer. Zina’s face reflected the fire. She looked from one to the other and finally caved, sinking back against the cushions.

  ‘You’ll think I’m making it up.’

  ‘Just tell us.’

  She drew a breath. Let it out. Drew another. And began. ‘It was . . . I was at work. At Langston’s house.’

  ‘Cataloguing?’ Harper had applied for that assistantship, a plumb opportunity to document the late professor’s expansive Pre-Columbian collection. But Wiggins had selected Zina. Of course.

  ‘Yes. Cataloguing.’ Zina pushed hair off her face, still playing with her bracelet. ‘But when the sun went down, the air – all of a sudden, it shifted. It actually moved. I felt someone there. Behind – or maybe in front – of me. I heard owls hooting. Dogs barking. And I smelled something – like incense. Smoky and musky . . . And then wings were flapping—’

  ‘Wings?’

  ‘I swear. Like the wings of a bat.’ Zina nodded, her face ghostlike, flickering orange. ‘And boards – the floor was creaking. Someone was there. I looked but couldn’t see anyone. And then, real low, I heard growling – soft and threatening, like a large cat about to pounce.’ She stopped, checking their faces as if afraid they’d laugh at her.