Still, whatever its design flaws, it was shelter. She should be thrilled since it was what she had been praying for the last hour and more.
“This is it?” Juliet asked with disfavor, though the answer was obvious.
“Uh-huh,” Jeffrey answered as he stopped the car with its headlights facing the door. He spoke with unusual brevity, making her suspect that he wasn’t comfortable either. That was understandable. The rain had made sinister what was an already spooky house and had mystified the surrounding wild woods that pressed in far too presumptuously for Juliet’s taste. The house might have been pretty once but it had gone to wrack and ruin.
“Well then.” The car, whose idling engine was usually strident and strong, was muted by the wind and rain, its powerful lights made vague and barely capable of lighting the porch. Even the sound of the windshield wipers was drowned out by the rain and wind. “I suppose there is nothing for it but to knock and hope it isn’t a ghost that answers.”
Juliet threw open her door, snatched up her duffel, and dashed for the porch. Jeffrey called out to her but his voice was cut off by the slamming door and the moaning of the wind. Juliet was soaked through every layer of clothing seconds after entering the downpour and had water running into her shoes by the time she dashed under the marginal safety of the porch roof.
“Damn it.”
The front door released its grip slowly under her knuckles and Juliet barely waited for it to open to body width before pushing inside. It took Juliet to notice that she was alone because the darkness was only broken by the palest of glows coming from a room on her right. It was hard to see through the smoke that curled through the air, making the currents visible.
“Hello?”
There did not appear to be anyone in the doorway trying to prevent her entrance. Perhaps they were sheltering behind the heavy wood panel, trying to avoid the wind. But no, the door had simply been unlatched and waiting for someone to open it. That seemed a bit trusting, but perhaps Jeffrey had been expected and the door left open for him?
Juliet stepped further into a fug that was only one part oxygen to two parts smoke. Fortunately the odor announced the source as a pipe or pipes and not an electrical or gas fire consuming the old firetrap of a house. That did nothing to answer the question of who had opened the door or been smoking with such dedication only minutes before they arrived.
The candle on the table just behind the door and the car’s drowning headlights provided just enough light to show her that the foyer was empty, except the smoke which had curdled in one particular corner and rather resembled a hunchbacked beast doing its best to transform into something human. There were also several spots on the wall where picture frames had hung. One frame remained but it was empty. The picture had been cut or torn away, leaving a few shreds of canvas.
Juliet couldn’t be positive, but her gut said that the act was vandalism and not thievery. That kind of anger was almost universally a sign of madness and always made her nervous.
“Hello?” she tried again and with a little more force. “Mr. Markham? Mr. Reich?”
She wished that Jeffrey would follow her, but he was staying with the car, using its headlights to illuminate the porch since the moon and stars would never be able to punch a hole through the clouds that smothered the sky. She was on her own for the time being. She had to hope that Mr. Reich was not a nervous, gun-bearing type of homeowner.
For a moment she wanted Esteban or Raphael to be there with her, in front of her, but then she took her nerves in hand and scolded them for being so craven. The atmosphere was gothic, to be sure. But nothing had threatened her except the rain and she was safely out of that for the time being. She was past the age of being frightened by boggles and smoke.
Juliet looked around. There was no suit of armor standing guard, but there were several heads which were missing their bodies. The dusty moose looked especially mournful at his undignified state. Overhead, the ceiling pressed low in the feathery light. Juliet peered upward but could see no cobwebs, though the impression that they were there and still occupied by hostile arachnids was strong. A few broken-back chairs crouched by the walls, colorless in the gloom. Perhaps they hid there out of shame.
Then the lights went out. Juliet prided herself on her calm, but the sudden dark and blast of wind that buffeted her face made her gasp and jump the tiniest bit.
Chapter 3
A car door slammed and feet pounded up the stairs. The steps were heavy because Jeffrey was carrying both a briefcase and a small travel case in worn cowhide. By the time he had made it in the door, Juliet had restored her face to a mask of calm.
His hurried entrance dispelled the smoke monster, though the air was still thick with pipe residue. Jeffrey shut the door softly, closing out the wind and making the sound of their dripping clothing quite loud on the marble floor. His eyes were squinted against the poisonous atmosphere.
“Mr. Markham is a smoker?” Juliet guessed, her voice rough, and she had the urge to reach for his hand so that she wouldn’t get lost in the dark.
“Yes. They both are. Hello,” Jeffrey called, but no one answered him either.
Lines from the de la Mare poem “The Listeners” came forcibly to mind.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men…
“Do you think that they’ve gone to bed?” After smoking five boxes of cigars and leaving the front door ajar to avoid asphyxiation.
“Must have.” Jeffrey looked toward the doorway where the faint light flickered.
“But maybe we should check. They might have fallen asleep by the fire.” Juliet didn’t know why she said this, but the small hairs on her arms were standing erect and it wasn’t because of the cold. She would not be at ease until she found the source of that flickering light.
They both turned toward the small door where wavering light played. Juliet let Jeffrey take the lead since he was marginally less a trespasser than she was. They had to move single file since the door would not allow them to stand abreast, and the small passage into the room beyond was narrow and so low that Jeffrey had to stoop to enter.
It should have been a relief to enter what had been a library and find a small fire kindled on the hearth, but the flames gave out little light or warmth and the slightly improved light only served to underline how close to derelict the house was. The once handsome room had been stripped to the plaster and sometimes beyond. Most of the books were gone and the few that remained were stacked on the floor because the built-in shelves had been torn out. Only the fireplace surround remained and that was likely because it was badly damaged. It looked like something with giant claws—or a crowbar—had attacked it, defacing the creatures that had been carved into the dark wood. There was a wingback chair and a settee where people might sit, but the horsehair had split and it was hemorrhaging cotton batting. There was the smell of smoke in the air, but it might have followed them into the room since the air was eddying in that direction.
“This is normal, right?” she whispered. “There hasn’t been a home invasion or a drunken frat party?”
“Normal for here, I gather,” Jeffrey whispered back. The light from the fire painted Jeffrey’s face with unpleasant shadows. “Mr. Reich has been selling off furnishings for years. I just hadn’t thought that it was….” He trailed off, shaking his head.
And Mr. Markham had been buying the family treasures? Surely he didn’t come to visit the gothic ruin just for auld lang syne. But if he were there for property acquisition he must be disappointed because clearly nothing of value remained.
Juliet saw movement by the heavily draped window and turned abruptly, blinking away the lingering smoke that plagued her eyes. Jeffrey gave a small gasp as a rat jumped out of the damaged plaster wall and ran up the rotting drapes beside him. Juliet would have gasped too but her breath wedged in her thr
oat. She was used to wild animals and had even had a few pay a visit to her bungalow before Marley came to live with her, but the scurrying rodent with its shiny eyes made her shudder with horror.
She knew that the fear growing in her imagination was more exhausting and debilitating than any real threat they were likely to face. And once terror had taken your hand in its icy grasp it was nearly impossible to make it let go. Fear was more loyal to the terrified than any lover or parent could ever be. She understood that she needed to shake off the horror at once and move into a better mental space. Like how about anger? Anger had its uses. It sprawled all over the mind and left little room for any other emotion.
She wasn’t afraid of old houses, however dilapidated or filled with creatures that ate the wiring. The rat disgorging itself from the wall didn’t really frighten her. It was one gothic touch too many at the end of a stressful day, and she was tired of being ambushed by unwanted situations and unlooked-for mysteries, especially after a car ride that was a near-death experience in and of itself. All she wanted was a bed with marginally clean sheets, and heaven help anyone or anything that got in her way—and that included rodents.
Possibly feeling the same way, Jeffrey pushed his way to the side of the room and flipped a switch whose face plate was missing, leaving wiring exposed. The bulb that lit up the low ceiling was dim, but it was electric and sane and helped rid the room of its haunted aura. The chamber no longer looked ghostly and became merely pathetic and fifty years overdue for a renovation.
In fact, Juliet thought with a frown, the interior design completely eclipsed in her memory the gothic nightmare of the exterior. The collective awfulness did in fact resemble the set of a low-budget made-for-TV thriller. At one side of the room was a tiny staircase with a wrought-iron banister and worn wooden treads that led to what looked like a gallows but perhaps had at one time held a chandelier. The stair seemed unnecessary since even a small stepstool would put the old beam within reach. From the few strips of remaining wood, Juliet could see that the walls had once been paneled in more of the dark oak of the foyer, which would have been pretty in moderation, but had probably been gloomy when used to cover every last inch of the walls which were now badly damaged right down to the dusty and cracked black and white marble floor where a small pool of water was gathering, suggesting it was neither level nor watertight.
How could anyone live there?
Did anyone live there? Could they have come to the wrong house?
A stray drop of rainwater ran between her breasts, and Juliet looked down at her clothes which were still contributing to the puddle on the cracked floor. She was grateful for her coat. The cotton blouse beneath would be nearly see-through, wet as it was, and she was past the age for enjoying in anyway looking like a wet t-shirt contestant.
“I don’t like to be rude.…”
“No, but obviously no one is up to welcome you and see to your comfort,” Jeffrey finished. “Come on. We’ll find someplace to dry off. I don’t want to track water all over the house.”
As a tidy housekeeper, Juliet appreciated the sentiment but doubted it would matter. She was beginning to notice that the walls, in addition to being vandalized, were also rather damp everywhere and had left small heaps of mildewed plaster on the floor. And that rather begged the question about whether the house was structurally sound. Based on appearances, that seemed unlikely. Perhaps it was time to count their losses and summon FEMA.
“This way,” Jeffrey said and, she thought, chose a hall at random.
The dead animal motif continued as they made their way to what was probably the old kitchen. There were numerous glassy-eyed, moth-eaten carcasses mounted on the walls, interspersed among what had to be bear traps and blunderbusses and other arcane and brutal hunting implements. Chill lay over everything like a winter fog, suggesting that there was no furnace.
In the kitchen, there was also rack after rack of deer and moose and elk antlers, stacked on the tilted floor like cordwood waiting for the oven. The prickly bone hedge was half-hiding a fireplace that would have housed a reasonable sized ox with room left over for bales of hay, but was instead being used as a stall for a worn Queen Anne settee and a broken grandfather clock with a gargoyle face. They were both coated with ash and fallen masonry from the collapsing chimney. If this was a fairytale, it was a dark one and going to wrack and ruin. Or rack and ruin, which was a more apt description.
Juliet got out her phone and snapped a picture. Esteban and Raphael would never believe her without proof. She hoped that Mr. Reich was receiving the counseling and drug therapy he obviously needed to combat the hereditary madness that galloped through his family’s bloodlines.
Jeffrey turned on a light, another lone bulb whose glass cover was missing, and politely handed her a kitchen towel which was threadbare sackcloth and smelled of mildew. Catching a whiff, Juliet wrinkled her nose and then handed it back.
“No thanks.”
Jeffrey, catching the scent of the rot, hastily set it back on the old, scarred table which was standing on three of its four legs. There were suggestive rust colored stains in the marred wood and the air smelled of long months of putrefaction and old blood.
“I apologize.” Though why he should be stuck doing it, Juliet couldn’t see. He could not have predicted this horror of a house.
“Think they were killing the fatted calf for us and got distracted … by something?” she muttered and then wanted to kick herself. “Sorry. If I had another foot to stick in my mouth, I probably would. But that is just fatigue talking. Don’t pay any attention to me.”
Exhaustion and disgust with their surroundings. She really was repulsed and made an effort not to look too closely at anything lest she find cockroaches or some other insects breeding to gay abandon. She could face rats, but not cockroaches.
Jeffrey turned to stare at her, consternation writ large on his face.
“Miss Henry, this is….”
“Yes, it is a predicament,” Juliet agreed before he could find the words to express his disbelief. She, too, was beginning to feel that the only way they would communicate with
someone in the house was if they used a Ouija board. “And though I am exhausted and couldn’t be more wet if I fell in a lake, somehow I feel that we had best search the house and ascertain that Mr. Reich and Mr. Markham are actually here and safe. It seems unlikely. Once the rain started they might have sensibly decided to decamp to a nice bed and breakfast in town.”
Jeffrey nodded, looking relieved that they had a plan and ready to believe her suggestion that his employer was somewhere less toxic. He turned about purposefully and walked briskly from the kitchen. If he hadn’t been dripping with every step he might have passed for a faithful retainer. The soggy squelching of his shoes rather ruined the effect. Juliet wasn’t complaining though. Her reserves of energy were getting low and she wanted to find the two missing men and then climb into something—anything—that resembled a bed. After she had used a bathroom. Her road-weary bladder was complaining about her neglect.
They were quiet as they squelched their way up the groaning stairs. Not because they had nothing to say or because they were too tired to speak of their puzzling surroundings. They stayed silent because they were listening for sounds that did not belong to the storm. Sounds of monsters or serial killers or other things that might do worse than go bump in the night.
Chapter 4
The house was empty. They decided against examining the attic and basement since neither was electrified. And the storm was a deterrent from examining any outbuildings that might exist on the unfamiliar property. Juliet figured any sheds would have to be as dilapidated as the house and would be full of skunks and snakes and black widows sheltering from the storm.
A bathroom was discovered and put to use, and then linens were found in an old cupboard that smelled heavily of mothballs. They gathered up smelly armfuls and then selected rooms for sleeping.
Juliet closed the ill-fitting door of her
chosen chamber and let herself sigh. She shrugged out of the ruins of her travel outfit and began mopping up with the provided towel. It was more like a rough linen sheet and very old. The creases had yellowed at the edges. On the damaged floor was a lone slipper, the leather curled and the marabou feathers molting until all she could think of was a dead parakeet.
She tried again to imagine what had happened but failed.
Next door she heard Jeffrey taking off his shoes and dropping them on the floor. A moment later the rusty box springs squeaked out their distress at being forced to their intended purpose.
Juliet turned and eyed her own mattress. The bed in her room was another artifact and she judged from the pronounced sag that one wouldn’t sleep in it so much as wear it as a hotdog would a bun. But the sagging mattress was covered with what looked like clean if yellowed sheets and showed no sign of rodent or silverfish habitation, so a weary Juliet decided to risk it. Her springs whined only half as loudly as Jeffrey’s had.
It was a night for unpleasant sounds. The wind moaned its frustration at being foiled by the window and forced to make its entry by stealth around the jambs and under doors. Juliet ignored it and finally fell asleep, and sometime in the night it went away.
That did not mean that the night was peaceful. Since Juliet’s faith in the government had gone belly up there were occasions when certain memories floated to the surface like the corpses of bloating fish. This happened in times of stress, so she was not entirely surprised when she dreamed that she was trapped in her old building, running down endless corridors lined with locked doors and exit signs that only led her back into the company maze.
It was a relief to open her eyes on a watery dawn and to abandon the hammock which smelled of past occupants and adventures. She heard Jeffrey stirring as well and dressed hastily. It would be a relief to depart the horror house.
Eye of the Beholder (A Miss Henry Mystery Book 7) (Miss Henry Mystery Series) Page 2
