"What happened?"
"He apparently took to wandering into town, accosting young women, threatening the townsfolk. There were reports of vandalism, destruction, babies gone missing. The people I spoke to hinted it might have been less of a killing and more of an execution--with the tacit approval of the Sunflower town fathers. The sheriff and his deputies shotgunned Mr. Doane in his house as he allegedly resisted arrest. There was no investigation."
"Jesus," D'Agosta replied. "That would explain the waitress's reaction. As well as all the hostility around here."
"Precisely."
"What the hell do you think happened to them? Something in the water?"
"I have no idea. But I will tell you this: I'm convinced they were the object of Helen's visit."
"That's a pretty big leap."
Pendergast nodded. "Consider this: they are the only unique element in an otherwise unremarkable town. There's nothing else here of interest. Somehow, they're the link we're searching for."
The waitress hustled up to their table, took away their plates, and went off, even as D'Agosta began to order coffee. "I wonder what it takes to get a cup of java around here," D'Agosta said, trying to attract her attention.
"Somehow, Vincent, I doubt you'll be getting your 'java' or anything more in this establishment."
D'Agosta sighed. "So who lives in the house now?"
"Nobody. It was abandoned and shut up since the shooting of Mr. Doane."
"We're going there," D'Agosta said, more as a statement than a question.
"Exactly."
"When?"
Pendergast raised his finger for the waitress. "As soon as we can get the check from our reticent but nevertheless most eloquent waitress."
25
THE WAITRESS DID NOT ARRIVE WITH THE check. Instead, it was the manager of the hotel. He placed the check on the table and then, without even a show of apology, informed them they would not be able to stay the night after all.
"What do you mean?" D'Agosta said. "We booked the room; you took our credit card numbers."
"There's a large party coming in," the man replied. "They had prior reservations the front desk overlooked--and as you can see, this is a small hotel."
"Too bad for them," D'Agosta said. "We're already here."
"You haven't unpacked yet," the manager replied. "In fact, I'm told your luggage isn't even in your rooms yet. I've already torn up your credit card voucher. I'm sorry."
But he didn't sound sorry, and D'Agosta was about to rake the man over the coals when Pendergast laid a hand on his arm. "Very well," Pendergast said, reaching into his wallet and paying the dinner bill in cash. "Good evening, then."
The manager walked away, and D'Agosta turned to Pendergast. "You're gonna let that prick walk all over us? It's obvious he's kicking us out because of the questions you're asking--and the ancient history we're stirring up."
In response, Pendergast nodded out the window. Glancing through it, D'Agosta saw the hotel manager now crossing the street. As D'Agosta watched, the man walked past several store buildings, shuttered for the night, and then vanished into the sheriff's office.
"What the hell kind of town is this?" D'Agosta said. "Next thing you know, it'll be villagers with pitchforks."
"Our interest doesn't lie with the town," Pendergast said. "There's no point in complicating things. I suggest that we leave at once--before the local sheriff finds an excuse to run us out."
They exited the restaurant and made their way to the back parking lot of the hotel. The storm that had been threatening was fast approaching: the wind raked the treetops, and thunder could be heard rumbling in the distance. Pendergast put up the Porsche's top as D'Agosta climbed in. Pendergast slipped in himself, turned on the engine, nosed the car into a back alley, then made his way through town via back streets, avoiding main thoroughfares.
The Doane house was located about two miles past town, up an unpaved drive that had once been well tended but was now little more than a rutted track. He drove cautiously, careful not to bottom out the Spyder in the hard-packed dirt. Dense stands of trees crowded in on both sides of the road, their skeletal branches lacing the night sky above their heads. D'Agosta, flung around in his seat until his teeth rattled, decided that even the Zambian Land Rover would have been preferable in these conditions.
Pendergast rounded a final bend and the house itself came into view in the headlights, the sky roiling with clouds above. D'Agosta stared at it in surprise. He had expected a large, elegant structure, as ornate as the rest of the town was plain. What he saw was large, all right, but it was hardly elegant. In fact, it looked more like a fort left over from the days of the Louisiana Purchase. Built out of huge, rough-edged beams, it sported tall towers at either end and a long, squat central facade with innumerable small windows. Atop this facade was the bizarre anachronism of a widow's walk, surrounded by spiked iron railings. It stood alone on a small rise of land. Beyond to the east lay forest, dense and dark, leading to the vast Black Brake swamp. As D'Agosta stared at the structure, a tongue of lightning struck the woods behind, briefly silhouetting it in spectral yellow light.
"Looks like somebody tried to cross a castle with a log cabin," he said.
"The original owner was a timber baron, after all." Pendergast nodded at the widow's walk. "No doubt he used that to survey his domain. I read that he personally owned sixty thousand acres of land--including much of the cypress forests in the Black Brake--before the government acquired it for the national forest and a wilderness area."
He pulled up to the house and stopped. The agent glanced briefly in the rearview mirror before maneuvering the car around to the back and killing the engine.
"Expecting company?" D'Agosta asked.
"No point in attracting attention."
Now the rain started: fat drops that drummed against the windshield and the fabric top. Pendergast got out, and D'Agosta quickly followed suit. They trotted over to the shelter of a rear porch. D'Agosta glanced up a little uneasily at the rambling structure. It was exactly the kind of eccentric residence that might attract a novelist. Every tiny window was carefully shuttered, and the door itself was secured with a padlock and chain. A riot of vegetation had grown up around the house, softening the rough lines of its foundation, while moss and lichens draped some of the beams.
Pendergast took a final look around, then turned his attention to the padlock. He held it by the hasp, turning it this way and that, and then passed his other hand, holding a small tool, over the cylinder housing. A quick fiddle and it snapped open with a loud creak. Pendergast removed the chain and let it drop to the ground. The door itself was also locked; Pendergast bent over it and swiftly defeated the mechanism with the same tool. Then he rose again and turned the knob, pushing the door open with a squeal of protesting hinges. Pulling a flashlight from his jacket, he stepped inside. D'Agosta had long ago learned, when working with Pendergast, to never get caught without two things: a gun and a flashlight. Now he pulled out his own light and followed Pendergast into the house.
They found themselves in a large, old-fashioned kitchen. In the center stood a wooden breakfast table, and an oven, refrigerator, and washing machine were arranged in a porcelain row along the far wall. Beyond that, any resemblance to a normal family kitchen ended. The cabinets were thrown open, and crockery and glassware, almost all of it broken, streamed out from the shelves and onto the countertops and floor. Remains of foodstuffs--grains, rice, beans--lay scattered here and there, desiccated, scattered by rats, and fringed with ancient mold. The chairs were overturned and splintered, and the walls were punctuated with holes made by a sledgehammer or--perhaps--a fist. Plaster had fallen from the ceiling in chunks, making miniature explosions of white powder here and there on the floor, in which vermin tracks and droppings could be clearly seen. D'Agosta played his beam around the room, taking in the whirlwind of destruction. His light stopped in one corner, where a large, long-dried accumulation of what seemed to be blood lay on
the floor; on the wall above, at chest height, were several ragged holes made by blasts from a heavy-gauge shotgun with similar sprays of dried blood and offal.
"I'd guess this is where our Mr. Doane met his end," D'Agosta said, "courtesy of the local sheriff. Looks like one hell of a struggle took place."
"It would indeed appear to be the site of the shooting," Pendergast murmured in reply. "However, there was no struggle. This damage occurred before the time of death."
"What the hell happened, then?"
Pendergast glanced around the mess a moment longer before replying. "A descent into madness." He shone his light toward a door in the far wall. "Come on, Vincent--let us continue."
They walked slowly through the first floor, searching the dining room, parlor, pantry, living room, bathrooms, and other spaces of indeterminate use. Everywhere they found the same chaos: overturned furniture, broken glassware, books ripped into dozens of pieces and scattered mindlessly over the floor. The fireplace in the den held hundreds of small bones. Examining them carefully, Pendergast announced that they were squirrel remains, which--based on their relative positions--had been stuffed up the chimney, staying there until decay and putrefaction caused them to fall back down onto the firedogs. In another room they found a dark, greasy mattress, surrounded by the detritus of countless ancient meals: empty tins of Spam and sardines, candy bar wrappers, crushed beer cans. One corner of the room appeared to have been used as an open latrine, with no attempt at sanitation or concealment. There were no paintings on any of the walls of the rooms, black-framed or otherwise. In fact, the only decorative works the walls displayed were endless frantic doodles in purple Magic Marker: a storm of squiggles and manic jagged lines that was disquieting to look at.
"Jesus," D'Agosta said. "What could Helen possibly have wanted here?"
"It is exceedingly curious," Pendergast replied, "especially considering that at the time of her visit, the Doane family was the pride of Sunflower. This decline into criminal madness happened much later."
Thunder rumbled ominously outside, accompanied by flashes of livid lightning through the shuttered windows. They descended into the basement, which, though less cluttered, showed signs of the same blizzard of lunatic destruction so evident on the first floor. After a thorough and fruitless search, they climbed to the second floor. Here the whirlwind of ruin was somewhat abated, although there were plenty of troubling signs. In what was clearly the son's bedroom, one wall was almost completely covered in awards for academic excellence and distinguished community service--based on their dates, taking place over a year or two around the time of Helen Pendergast's visit. The facing wall, however, was equally crowded with the desiccated heads of animals--pigs, dogs, rats--all hammered into the wood in the roughest manner possible, with no effort made to clean or even exsanguinate them: dried blood ran down in heavy streams from each mummified trophy onto those hammered in place below.
The daughter's room was even more creepy for showing a complete lack of personality: the only feature of note was a row of similarly bound red volumes in a bookshelf that was otherwise empty, save for an anthology of poetry.
They gradually walked through the empty rooms, D'Agosta trying to make sense of the senselessness of it.
At the very end of the hall, they came to a locked door.
Pendergast slid out his lockpicking tools, jimmied the lock, and attempted to open the door. It wouldn't budge.
"There's a first," said D'Agosta.
"If you will observe the upper doorjambs, my dear fellow, you'll see that the door, in addition to being locked, has been screwed shut." His hand fell from the knob. "We'll return to this. Let's take a look at the attic first."
The attics of the old house were a warren of tiny rooms packed under the eaves, full of moldy furniture and old luggage. They made a thorough inspection of the boxes and trunks, raising furious choking clouds of dust in the process, but found nothing more interesting than some musty old clothes, piles of newspapers sorted and stacked and tied with twine. Pendergast rummaged through an old toolbox and removed a screwdriver, slipping it into his pocket.
"Let's check the two towers," he said, brushing dust from his black suit with evident distaste. "Then we'll tackle the sealed room."
The towers were drafty columns of winding stairs and storage niches full of spiders, rat droppings, and piles of yellowing old books. Each tower staircase dead-ended into a tiny lookout room, with windows like the arrow slits of a castle, looking down over the lightning-troubled forest. D'Agosta found himself growing impatient. The house seemed to have little to offer them other than madness and riddles. Why had Helen Pendergast come here--if she'd come here at all?
Finding nothing of interest in the towers, they returned to the main house and the sealed door. As D'Agosta held the light, Pendergast drew out two long screws. He turned the knob, pushed the door open, and stepped inside. D'Agosta followed--and almost staggered backward in surprise.
It was like stepping into a Faberge egg. It was not a large room, but it seemed to D'Agosta jewel-like--filled with treasures that glowed with internal brilliance. The windows had been boarded over and nailed with canvas, leaving the interior almost hermetically preserved, every surface so lovingly polished that even a decade of abandonment could not dull the luster. Paintings covered every square inch of wall space, and the interior was crowded with gorgeous handmade furniture and sculptures, the floor spread with dazzling rugs, sparkling jewelry laid out on pieces of black velvet.
In the middle of the room stood a single divan, covered in richly tanned leather that had been tooled into an astonishing cascade of abstract floral designs. The ebb and flow of the hand-worked lines were so cunningly wrought, so hypnotically beautiful, that D'Agosta could scarcely take his eyes from them. And yet other objects in the room cried out for his attention. At one end, several fantastical sculptures of elongated heads, carved in an exotic wood, stood beside an array of exquisite jewelry in gold, gems, and lustrous black pearls.
D'Agosta walked through the room in an astonished silence, hardly able to focus his attention on any one thing before some fresh marvel drew it away. On one table stood a collection of small, handmade books in elegant leather bindings with gold tooling. D'Agosta picked one up and thumbed through it, finding it full of poems handwritten in a beautiful script, signed and dated by Karen Doane. The loom-woven rugs formed several layers on the floor, and they displayed geometric designs so colorful and striking that they dazzled the eye. He flashed the light around the walls, marveling at the oil paintings, landscapes lustrous with life, of the forest glades around the house, old cemeteries, vivid still lifes, and ever-more-fantastical landscapes and dreamscapes. D'Agosta approached the closest one and squinted, playing the light over it--observing that it was signed M. DOANE along the bottom margin.
Pendergast came up beside him, a silent presence. "Melissa Doane," he murmured. "The novelist's wife. It would appear that these paintings are hers."
"All of them?" D'Agosta played the beam over the other walls of the little room. There was no painting in a black frame, no painting, in fact, not signed M. DOANE.
"I'm afraid it's not here."
Slowly, D'Agosta let his flashlight drop to his side. He realized he was breathing fast, and that his heart was racing. It was bizarre--beyond bizarre. "What the hell is this place? And how has it stayed like this without being robbed?"
"The town protects its secrets well." Pendergast's silvery eyes darted about, taking everything in, an expression of intense concentration on his face. Slowly, once again, he paced the room, finally stopping at the table of handmade books. He quickly sorted through them, flipping the pages and putting them back. He left the room, and D'Agosta followed him down the hall as he entered the daughter's room. D'Agosta caught up as he was examining the shelf of identical red-bound volumes. His spidery hand reached out and plucked the last one down. He riffled through the pages; every one was blank. Pendergast put it back and drew out the penulti
mate volume. This one was full of nothing but horizontal lines, made apparently with a ruler, so densely drawn that each page was almost black with them.
Pendergast selected the next book, flipped through it, finding more dense lines and some crude, stick-like, childish sketches in the beginning. The next volume contained disjointed entries in a ragged hand that climbed up and down across the pages.
Pendergast began to read out loud, at random, prose written in poetic stanzas.I cannotSleep I must notSleep. They come, they whisperThings. They show meThings. I can't tune itOut, I can't tune itOut. If I sleep again I willDie... Sleep = DeathDream = DeathDeath = I can't tune itOut
Pendergast flipped a few pages. The ravings continued until they seemed to dissolve into disjointed words and illegible scratchings. More thoughtfully, he put the book back and drew out another, much earlier in the set, opening it in the middle. D'Agosta saw lines of strong and even writing, evidently that of a girl, with doodles of flowers and funny faces in the margins and i's that were dotted with cheerful circles.
Pendergast read off the date.
D'Agosta did a quick mental calculation. "That would be about six months before Helen's visit," he said.
"Yes. When the Doanes were still new to Sunflower." Pendergast paged through the entries, scanning them swiftly, pausing at one point to read out loud: Mattie Lee razzed me again about Jimmy. He may be cute but I can't stand the goth clothes and that thrash metal he's into. He slicks his hair back and smokes, holding the cigarette up close to the burning ash. He thinks it makes him look cool. I think it makes him look like a nerd trying to look cool. Even worse: it makes him look like a dweeb who looks like a nerd who's trying to be cool.
"Typical high-school girl," said D'Agosta, frowning.
"Perhaps a bit more incisive than most." The agent continued flipping forward through the volume. He stopped abruptly at an entry made some three months later. "Ah!" he exclaimed, sudden interest in his voice, and began to read. When I got home from school I saw Mom and Dad in the kitchen hovering over something on the counter. Guess what it was? A parrot! It was gray and fat, with a stumpy red tail and a big fat metal band around its leg with a number but no name. It was tame and would perch right on your arm. It kept cocking its head at me and peering into my eyes, like it was checking me out. Dad looked it up in the encyclopedia and said it was an African Grey. He said it had to be somebody's pet, it was too tame for anything else. It just showed up around noon, sitting in the peach tree next to the back door, making noise to announce its presence. I begged Dad to let us keep it. He said we could until he found the real owner. He says we have to run an ad. I told him to run it in the Timbuctoo Times and he thought that was pretty funny. I hope he never finds the real owner. We made a little nest for it in an old box. Dad is going to the pet store in Slidell tomorrow to get him a real cage. While he was hopping around the counter he found one of Mom's muffins, gave a squawk, and started gorging on it, so I named him Muffin.
Fever Dream p-10 Page 14
