The buildings had sat vacant now for nearly three months, while the tabloid press had a field day with Clarence Melton. The Inner Eye ran a cover story: "Melton's Madness—America's Borley Rectory!" And even the Post ran a page three story, "Ghosts in the Attic, or Bats in the Belfry?" Clarence Melton didn't like being laughed at, and he particularly didn't like having a multimillion-dollar investment sitting empty and untouched.
Joseph pushed his chair back from his computer, stood up, and walked away from the screen full of words to the window that looked out on the airshaft. "So what do you think? Melton called in some of his markers?"
"Sure," Tony said, looking up from a paperback titled The Two-Bear Mambo. He had already gone through all the files on the computer. "He calls some senator, or maybe Clinton himself, Clinton calls Carey, Carey gives it to operations, and it naturally ends up with Skye."
"Why 'naturally'?" Joseph asked.
"Because it's weird, and Skye's in charge of weird shit. And we're his weird-shit crew."
At 3:30 they walked through the lobby, but Laika stopped at the door. "Tony, get us a cab," she said.
"A cab?" Joseph said. "We've got plenty of time to walk, it's just across the park."
"We'll take cabs or the car. I don't want us seen on the street if we don't have to be." She glanced at Tony, and he nodded and went out to the sidewalk. Joseph shrugged, but waited with Laika.
Their cab arrived ten minutes before their scheduled meeting with Melton, so they crossed Fifth Avenue. There, in the shadow of Central Park's trees, they stood and observed the buildings.
The eight brownstones were all connected, with overhanging walkways between the second and third, fourth and fifth, and sixth and seventh. They were all four stories, and were laden with an anachronistic combination of Victorian and gothic ornamentation. The stone was heavily soiled with soot that Laika thought might have survived since the turn of the century, and the windows were so heavily coated with a layer of grime that it was nearly impossible to see through them.
"Looks pretty spooky," said Tony.
Joseph patted him on the shoulder. "Don't worry, I'll hold your hand."
Tony had just opened his mouth to make a comeback when a limousine pulled into a reserved space in front of the buildings. Two men got out of the back. One carried a briefcase and had the subservient air of a longtime assistant. The other moved with a fluidity of motion and a physical sureness that told Laika he had spent long hours working out on a variety of machines. She had only seen blurry newspaper photographs of Clarence Melton and had not expected him to be so young.
It was only when they crossed the street and she introduced herself and the others to him that she realized he was older than he appeared. From his face, she could see that he was in his mid-fifties, but grooming, exercise, and hair dye made him look little older than forty to the untrained eye. His topcoat fitted perfectly, and the tie and shirt visible beneath were immaculate.
"Dr. Kelly, Dr. Antonelli, Dr. Tompkins," he said, repeating their cover names as though it were an exercise in a memory course, "it's very good to meet you. This is Dennis Tweed, my assistant. Come, let's go inside."
They followed Melton and Tweed up the steps of the fourth brownstone and waited while Tweed opened several locks and pushed the door open. The sour smell of mildew and dried urine struck them as they walked in.
Melton made a face. "I'm sorry about the odor. It'll disappear completely when we're able to get started in here, which I hope will be soon, with your help." He pointed down a short hall that led past an open staircase to the back of the house. "It's less nasty back there. Shall we?"
What had once been a sitting room was furnished with some plastic stacking lawn chairs. The silent Tweed pulled a large white handkerchief from an inner pocket and wiped the surfaces of them. Melton waited until the ops were seated, then sat himself. Tweed remained standing, clutching his briefcase, looking at them without expression from behind a pair of thick bifocals.
"How much do you know about the houses?" Melton asked.
"As much as we read in our reports . . . and the newspaper stories," Laika said.
Melton nodded sadly. "Yes, they were pretty sensationalistic. Dredging up the sordid history of the place. It's true, several decades after they were built, they were prostitution row for the Upper East Side dandies. They were built in 1882, as townhouses for those just under the Four Hundred in wealth, or for rich widows—that range of income. But in twenty years, who knows what happened? Rumor has it that one railroad magnate purchased one of them for his mistress. Then another tycoon, not to be outdone, did the same for his paramour.
"Well, after all, who wanted to live beside what were essentially kept women? So the gentry moved out, and more monied riffraff moved in. The rich men tired of their playthings and gave them the houses to pay them off." Melton gave an eloquent shrug. "These ladies knew only one business, and they began to recruit others to fill the empty rooms. Since the neighborhood was still good, they were appealing to wealthy men, whose . . . How shall I put this? . . . whose normal desires were easily satisfied, so they looked for more exotic thrills."
"Kinky stuff," Tony said.
"Exactly. Things could get fairly rough. Girls, even young girls and boys, might be the victims. We know some were tortured. We think some probably died, but the customers' money ensured that the bodies would be found floating in the East River . . . or never be found at all."
"But there was never any proof of murders committed here?" Joseph asked. "No bodies, no skeletons found?"
"No," Melton said. "But admittedly, some of these walls could contain bones, and the cellars go down two stories. The subcellars have concrete floors, but that wasn't poured until the thirties, so who knows what might have been buried under dirt floors before?"
"We've read all kinds of horror stories in the papers about what's gone on here recently," Laika said, "but really, to your knowledge, what kind of things have happened?"
"Unfortunately, the same sort of incidents you read about in the papers. Strange things started happening as soon as the workmen went in. It seemed the minute they began to do any demolition—tearing out walls, pulling up floors—there would be noises, from pounding on the floors and ceilings to screams right in the ears of the men. They would spin around, and nobody'd be there."
"No one ever saw anything?" Laika asked.
"No. Several of the men said they thought they'd catch something . . . some movement . . . out of the corners of their eyes, but when they whirled around, nothing was there."
"Was there any history of haunting before the workmen came in?" Joseph asked. "From the last tenants? Or any tenants, for that matter?"
"Apparently. A number of them have talked to the press and have said they've heard voices, seen figures. Some mentioned poltergeist activity."
Joseph raised his eyebrows. "Did any of the workmen experience that?"
"Oh, yes. Several of them left things unattended—toolboxes, machines, even their lunchboxes. They leave the room for a minute, they come back, and the machines are on and the toolboxes and lunchboxes are open and everything's thrown all around. And there's no other way in or out of the room except the way they went, and nobody went in or out."
"Have you had dogs in?" Tony asked.
"Yes. They hate the place. Can't get a scent of anything in this stench. I assume they're overwhelmed by it all."
"Someone had mentioned cold spots," said Laika.
"Oh, yes, we have those, too—I've seen them, in fact. Well, not seen, but, you know, felt them. And there are the lights."
"Lights?" Laika said.
"We've been able to keep that to ourselves, thank God. Otherwise, people would show up around midnight across the street every night." Melton sighed. "These lights appear in a couple of the windows every night. We've had people inside the very room at the time, but they don't see a thing inside."
"And is there any rumor about that particular room?" asked Joseph.
"I mean, did someone die horribly there, or commit suicide or floss too hard?"
Melton smiled. "I think you're a skeptic, Doctor."
"You're right, Mr. Melton. You know, this very well might be America's Borley Rectory, like The Inner Eye said. Because what people tend to forget is that Borley—the most haunted house in England—was a total hoax. Even the Society for Psychical Research said that there wasn't a thing that happened at Borley that couldn't have a rational, non-supernatural explanation. And all the things that couldn't be explained were probably done by Harry Price. He was the ghost hunter who built his reputation on Borley."
"So you think all these things have a rational explanation? The lights . . . the poltergeist activity . . . the screaming?"
"If there's a light, someone has to shine it. A scream, some throat has to make it. And if tools are thrown around, somebody's hand had to do it. Yes. They all have a rational explanation. And it can be found."
"You sound like Frank Hardy," Melton said with a grin.
Joseph frowned. "I'm sorry?"
"Frank Hardy in the Hardy Boys books. I read them all when I was a kid. When there was a ghost somewhere, Joe always believed in it, but Frank never did. And Frank was always right."
"Smugglers," said Tony. "I read them, too. And it was usually smugglers."
"Or counterfeiters," Laika added. Then she chuckled. "They were a lot more exciting than Nancy Drew."
"Well, I wish it were smugglers," Melton said, "and I'm a pretty practical man. But I don't know . . . there's enough to this that I've hired a psychic to come in and look the place over."
Joseph groaned.
"I take it you disapprove."
"There hasn't been a so-called psychic yet who has the ability to do anything but deceive their clients and the media."
"What about all those psychics who help the police catch murderers? Leading them to bodies, giving them descriptions?"
"It doesn't happen," Joseph said. "There's no police force in the world that asks psychics for help—it's the other way around. Psychics beg to be allowed to investigate, especially in high-profile cases. If they get lucky, they've written their ticket. If not, they don't mention it to a soul. Tell me, your psychic, did you contact him? Or vice versa?"
"She contacted me. Elissa Meyer."
"Oh, Jesus—" Joseph muttered.
"You know her?"
"Of her. And she's promised she can put a stop to your 'manifestations.'"
"Yes, she has."
"All right, Mr. Melton, I'll tell you what: we'll look around today and this evening, then we'll come back. And when we do, that's when you should invite the psychic Ms. Meyer here—"
"Dr. Tompkins," Laika said to Joseph, trying to caution him.
"—And then you can see which approach best suits your particular needs—scientific inquiry—"
"Dr. Tompkins—"
"—Or mumbo-jumbo charlatanry!"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Melton," Laika said, turning a basilisk eye on Joseph. "Sometimes Dr. Tompkins gets a bit overzealous in his crusade to debunk what he considers fraudulent claims. Perhaps you and Mr. Tweed would care to show us around the place now?"
Melton glanced at Tweed, who forced a small smile. Laika quickly got the feeling that the man would rather not be anywhere near this place. "Of course," Melton said. "Let's start with the cellars first, and we'll work our way up. Mr. Tweed?"
Chapter 18
Tweed opened his briefcase and from it took five small but right Maglites, one for each of them. "The electricity is off," Melton said. "I bought a place four years ago, and while I was gathering the crew for it, some old wiring caused a fire and the place was totaled. Ever since then, I always cut off the power when there's no work being done. But with five of these," he said, holding up his light, "we'll probably have more light than we'd get from an incandescent bulb."
The cellars and subcellars were as dank and dingy as anything Laika had ever seen, and the smell seemed to be worse. Joseph ran a hand along the damp wall and sniffed his fingers. "No smell, but it almost seems as though the sewer lines are getting into the groundwater."
"No," said Melton, shaking his head. "The pipes have all been inspected. But I know what you mean. The smell seems to come from the very walls."
"Has the water been turned off?" Laika asked.
"Yes. No water at all."
All of the upstairs rooms were in a state of decay. Yellowed wallpaper hung in strips, and what carpet remained on the floors was tattered, worn, and mildewed. The woodwork was still handsome beneath its patina of dust, and the hardwood floors could, Laika thought, be sanded and refinished. But it would take a lot of work, she thought, to get the stench to disappear.
It was seven o'clock by the time they finished going through four of the houses, and there were as many again to see. Darkness had fallen outside, and the Maglites were necessary everywhere, since the street lights pressed only fitfully against the built-up detritus on the windowpanes.
They were going down the second-floor hall of the fifth building, and had just finished picking their way around a pile of uprooted ceramic tiles that lay near the window, when Tony stopped. "Hey," he said softly. "Wait a minute."
They all stopped then, and Laika felt a chill stir the hairs at the back of her neck. It was cold here, probably ten degrees colder than anywhere else they had been on this floor, but she wasn't going to be the first to say it; Joseph did. ''It's colder here."
"I didn't want to say anything," Melton said. "I wanted you to be the ones to notice it."
"Well, you can't help it." Joseph shone his light over the walls and ceiling. "There must be someplace here that a draft is getting in."
"I don't think so," said Melton. "Mr. Tweed?" Tweed took from his pocket a slim, gold cigarette lighter and lit it. The yellow flame wavered as Tweed's hand shook from nervousness. "Here," said Melton, and plucked the lighter from his subordinate's fingers. Melton held it steady, and the flame did not flicker, not even when he slowly moved it all around the area in which they stood.
"No draft, then," Joseph said. "I wonder—"
But he didn't finish his thought. Suddenly, from what seemed like all around them, a voice pierced the foul air of the hall. It started as a low moan, then, in only a couple of seconds, surged higher, like a siren increasing in frequency, until a shriek like the sound of a hundred nails scraping a blackboard made Laika grit her teeth and shut her eyes. It continued to remain at that impossible summit of pitch, a sound full of pain and hate and madness.
Just as Laika forced open her eyes to confront whatever had made that terrible scream, it stopped. It didn't fade off, but stopped dead, as if the head that had made it had been severed. There was not even an echo remaining.
She whipped her light down the hall, then up in the other direction. Joseph and Tony were doing the same. But their flashlights' beams caught nothing except each other, Clarence Melton's stern-jawed, pale face, and Mr. Tweed, whose eyes were still pressed shut, and whose grimace told Laika that he was still hearing the scream.
"What the hell was that?" asked Tony, and she was glad that she had not been the first to speak. She wouldn't have trusted her voice not to quaver.
"I heard it once before," said Melton. "Several weeks ago. Can you see now why the workmen don't want to come in here?"
"Not really," said Joseph. Laika was amazed to see that he was smiling calmly. "It's a voice, that's all. And voices have to have people to make them work."
"Do you see anybody except us?" Tony asked, then added, "Doctor Tompkins?"
"I didn't have to see it. I heard it."
"Then you think it was a live person? And not a ghost?" Melton asked. Tweed was just starting to open his eyes.
"Since I don't believe in ghosts, that's the only possible conclusion. It's a horrible scream, yes—but it was no sound that couldn't necessarily come from a human throat."
"If we discuss this further," said Laika, "I suggest we leave this particular spot
. Mr. Tweed, do you agree?"
Tweed nodded, and a small "Yes" escaped his mouth. As they left the hallway, Laika thought that they were all walking a bit faster than when they'd entered. Even if whatever had screamed was human, she had no desire to hear the sound again.
At last they arrived on the stoop of the fifth building, where they paused. Melton took a deep breath. "I think maybe we'll conclude the tour tonight. I do have another appointment later on, and the other buildings are very similar to those you've seen. Let me make one suggestion, though. Please—"
He led the way down the steps and across the street. "The fifth building, the one we were just in? That's where the light appears—that second window there on the third floor. Like I said, it always happens around midnight."
"We'll come back, then," Laika said. "We'll need some time to study this further and to prepare a thorough investigation, Mr. Melton, but we'll be back in touch in a day or two."
"And we'll fix up this problem for you," Joseph promised. "I hope you'll invite Miss Meyer to investigate at the same time. I think it would be useful to compare her technique to that of our team."
"I'll do that," Melton said. "I'm sure she'll look on it as a challenge."
"I'm sure she'll be scared . . . stiff," Joseph countered. "You might expect an excuse."
Melton said good-bye, and, after offering to drop the ops off, he and Tweed drove away in the limo, whose driver had been waiting patiently for hours. Tweed was still trembling as he opened the limo door.
"Doesn't talk much," Tony said, as they watched the limo drive down the street.
"Fear," Joseph said. "It makes people either run at the mouth or shut up entirely. I'd bet a hundred bucks that man has moist shorts right now. So—" He turned to Laika. "What's next?"
"Tell me—you're the expert. You think it's a hoax?"
"Now, I'd bet a thousand dollars on that. Sure, it is. Somebody, or somebodies, are in those buildings. We just have to come back and find out who, and where they're hiding."
"Okay, I admit the scream might have been human," Tony said, "but what about the cold spot?"
City of Iron Page 11
