“Wait, back up. You’re saying you think Baxter Kerns is involved with this corrupt investment company? Why?”
“The Madeleine. It’s one of those private clubs on Forty-fourth. Baxter’s a member. Had me meet him there. And that’s obviously where he’s pulling in some of his suckers, probably highly recommending Carter & Thompson as ‘smart bets’ for investing—you know how it goes. Seems to me the only reason he wants me to find Tattershawe is to give him lead poisoning before he can spill to his sister or anybody else.”
“But, Jack, a lot of men belong to that club. Why do you think Baxter is one of the silent partners?”
“My gut, baby. This stack of coincidences is just too high to be random. Think it through. If Baxter were as innocent as a spring lamb, and he suspected Tattershawe of taking a powder with his sister’s money, then why didn’t he go to police with his tale? Why wasn’t he looking for an all-out investigation of Carter & Thompson? Why did he hire me to find Tattershawe but reveal his whereabouts to no one but Baxter himself? I’ll tell you why—because Baxter Kerns is dirty too.”
“But there still might be other explanations. To accuse him, you’ll need proof—”
Just then, we heard voices in the hall.
“Hey, what is that?” (A smooth male voice.)
“What’s what?” (A much gruffer male voice.)
“There’s a light under the records room door.”
Jack didn’t say a thing; in about two seconds, he stacked up the files on the desk, picked them up, and grabbed my arm. Before I could utter a word, he pulled me into the far corner and shoved me down.
We were tucked between the outside wall and the file cabinets—well hidden unless anyone walked all the way to the end of the room; then they’d see us crouched here, for sure. Jack maneuvered me behind him and pulled his weapon. He didn’t have to tell me not to make a sound.
The knob rattled as the men unlocked then opened the door.
Smooth voice said, “Who left these lights on?”
“Dunno.” (Gruff was a real genius.)
“Well, we’re going to find out.”
“Whatsa matter, you worried ’bout the electric bill?”
“I’m worried about a fire, you idiot. This place is a fleapit and the last thing we need is an electrical fire.” We heard the men come into the room. A file drawer opened and shut, then another, then a third.
“Turn the lights off and let’s go,” said the smooth voice. “I’ve got a meeting with Baxter Kerns across town in less than an hour.”
Before the door shut, Jack carefully peeked around the file cabinet—to get a good look at the men talking, I assumed. When they shut and relocked the door, I heard him exhale a long, furious breath. His left hand was balled into an angry fist, and his right was clutching the gun so tightly, his knuckles had turned white.
“For what they did to Mindy,” he bit out low, “this whole operation is going down. And if I get my hands on Baxter Kerns, even his sister’s not going to recognize him when I’m through.”
Jack put the gun back in his holster, then we carefully left the room. I thought we were in the clear; the hallway looked empty, but the two men who’d just left were doubling back, complaining about grabbing the wrong file.
“Hey! You there!” The smooth guy, in a dapper suit, two-toned shoes, and sharp fedora turned to the swarthy giant by his side. “Get them!”
Jack went for his gun again, but by the time he cleared it out of his overalls, the gruff thug lunged at him. Jack wasn’t a small man and when the two crashed together, it was like a pair of freight trains colliding.
The two men grappled then went down hard. I heard Jack cry out on the floor. The gun had flown down the hall and I ran off to get it, but I didn’t know how to remove the safety or properly aim and fire it. I held it, feeling helpless, trying at least to keep the gun ready for Jack when he could get clear of the big man.
The giant tried to kick Jack, but he rolled and got back on his feet. The big man rose too. Fists flew and blows were exchanged. Finally, Jack got the upper hand. He used some evasive maneuvers that looked like rudimentary martial arts. He’d said something about learning jujitsu in the service, and it sure looked effective to me. The guy was bigger and he’d gotten the drop on Jack, but now he couldn’t touch the PI.
In a few swift moves, the giant was down, holding his head and moaning. The smooth, dapper gent had disappeared, and I assumed he’d run off to sound the alarm and get more help.
“Let’s go,” Jack barked, taking my arm.
“How do we get out? Back stairs again?”
“No, honey. When you break in the back, and they catch you, you might as well go out the front.”
And that’s exactly what we did.
We ran all the way back to our alleyway. Amazingly, no one had disturbed our clothes, although a few fat rats were sniffing around the old fridge where I’d left mine.
“Shoo!” I cried. They weren’t impressed. So I changed with an audience.
“What the hell…” Jack muttered.
I looked up, as I zipped my skirt. “Jack, what is it? Are you okay?”
He was still half undressed, standing in his undershirt and boxers, but the blood made me forget all modesty. I rushed over to find him bleeding from the thigh. The cut wasn’t too bad, but I was puzzled how it happened.
“The oval frame broke,” he informed me. “I transferred everything I was carrying into the overalls, including that picture of Vincent Tattershawe. So when the big guy sent me down, the glass must have broken and cut me.”
I lifted my wool skirt and pulled down my slip, used it to clean the wound, then pressed it to see that it properly clotted.
“Thanks, baby. You make a pretty good nurse, you know?”
“What is it with this nurse obsession?” I smiled. He smiled back. Then he finished dressing and transferred his personal items from the overalls back into his suit pockets. He tossed the broken glass and the oval frame into a nearby trash can, keeping only the photo.
“What’s this?” he murmured, removing the photo from the frame backing.
“What’s what?”
He showed me a small key. It had been taped to the backing of the frame, hidden between the photo and the glass. There was a tiny slip of paper wrapped around the key—like the ticker tape used to update stockbrokers on the market. My hands were smaller so I unrolled it.
“It’s a Sixth Avenue address in midtown,” I said.
“Looks like we got ourselves another clue.”
“What do you think this key will open?”
Jack examined it. Three very tiny letters were engraved on the side. “SDB,” he murmured, puzzled for a moment, then lifted an eyebrow. “Safety-deposit box.”
CHAPTER 20
Out of Order
It was a wild explanation, for a dozen reasons it wouldn’t hold water. Yet I couldn’t think of anything better.
—Francis James, “Dance of the Bloodless Ones,”
Terror Tales, July–August 1937
I OPENED MY eyes to the sound of an emergency siren. I soon realized that I was flat on my back, strapped to a rigid pallet, staring at the interior of a speeding ambulance.
In another case of stone-cold irony, the wailing vehicle brought me directly to Benevolent Heart Hospital. Only now, instead of marking time in the dreary old waiting room, I was treated like royalty.
While a helpful administrator processed my medical insurance information, I was whisked by stretcher into the triage center where my cuts and scrapes were cleaned and bandaged, injections were offered and accepted, and X-rays were taken. At last, I was placed on a gurney and wheeled into a white, featureless room.
Through an interior window, I watched the medical staff scurry around. A nurse arrived after fifteen minutes or so and took my blood pressure and temperature—for about the hundredth time.
Finally, a young intern arrived to pronounce sentence. His shaved head and the barbed-wire t
attoo encircling his muscular biceps threw me for a moment, but I soon figured out he was a doctor because he wore green OR scrubs and had a stethoscope draped around his neck.
Cripes, Jack said, this guy looks like a Merchant Marine. With male nurses and docs as tough as this palooka, the medical profession must be hell these days.
I wasn’t sure what threw me more, my woozy head or being back in the present again. I was about to speak to Jack about the dream when the doctor spoke up first—
“Mrs. McClure? I’m Dr. Fortino, a physician on staff here at Benevolent Heart Hospital.”
I figured he was giving me his job description because I was eyeing him kind of funny, like I thought he should be out drinking with his fraternity buddies instead of staffing an emergency room.
“Uh-huh,” I said eloquently.
“Fortunately there’s no sign of a concussion that we can find, but by your own admission you lost consciousness for a period of time right after the accident, and that’s never a good thing. So I’ve scheduled you for a more thorough evaluation in the morning. We’ll take another look at that bump on your head, and I’d like a specialist to check out the hairline fracture on your left forearm.”
The arm in question was black and blue, and every beat of my heart caused it to throb with a pain that radiated from my wrist to the tips of my fingers. I was actually surprised the damage was not much worse.
“You could get out of here tonight, but I recommend you remain here for observation, until the tests are conducted in the morning. If all goes well, you’ll be out of here by noon.”
I agreed to stay for a lot of reasons. I was tired and a bed sounded nice, and I didn’t relish the look on the face of my son when he got his first peep at his mommy the mummy. But mostly I agreed to stay overnight because it fit in with my plan.
Dr. Fortino said goodnight, and I was wheeled by a pair of nurses—both young and attractive women, to Jack’s delight—into an elevator and transported to the fourth floor, where I was placed in a bed. It wasn’t a private room, but the other bed was empty. The room was an antiseptic-white space with a single window overlooking the parking lot.
Outside, the sky was purple and the rain fell much lighter now, dewing the window with tiny drops that twinkled in the glow of the halogen street lights.
I waited until the nurses tucked me in and left me alone, then I grabbed my scuffed purse and fumbled for my cell. I checked that the digital pictures had survived the crash. Of course, before I’d left Chesley’s mansion I’d dispatched a copy of the files to my aunt’s cell, just in case. But I was relieved to find my own digital files inside the phone’s memory.
Next, I called my aunt. She hadn’t heard from me since I phoned that afternoon, and she was worried sick. It didn’t help her state of mind that Brainert had phoned her requesting information, and mentioned that I was headed for the Chesley mansion.
I told Sadie that I’d made it in and out of the mansion in one piece, and had an encounter with Peter’s son, Raymond. I left out that nasty part about being run off the road, and being admitted to the hospital. No need to trouble my aunt now, she’d only make herself sick with worry.
“Garfield Platt came by the store this afternoon,” Sadie said. “He gave me the keys from behind the register. Found them in his jacket this morning, he said. He figured he must have walked out with them on Monday when he left work.”
“You buy his explanation?” I asked, still wondering if those keys were used by my attacker to get through the back door.
“I believe him, Pen. I believe him because today Garfield gave me his two weeks’ notice—”
“What?”
“He’s leaving. The reason Garfield missed work was because he was busy selling his Web site.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, it’s wonderful for him. Apparently Garfield developed a unique type of software program. It allowed his Web site customers to download novelty ring tones into their phones. He said a young marketing executive at a major Hollywood studio contacted him. They want to use his software exclusively. They’ve hired him to head the ring tone unit, or whatever they call it. I’m so proud of that boy! He’ll be leaving for Los Angeles in three weeks.”
“Well, that’s great,” I said with mixed feelings. I was happy for him, of course, but sorry we were losing a reliable employee. “His parents must be proud. Now he’ll have a chance to explore the world beyond Quindicott while he’s still young.”
“When you come home, I’ll tell you more about it,” Sadie said. “You are coming home soon, aren’t you, Pen?”
“I…I have to do something first.”
“Where are you?” My aunt’s voice was suddenly filled with concern—and suspicion.
“I’m at the hospital, Aunt Sadie.” (No lie there.) “I’m going to visit Brainert, show him the photos I took.” (True again.)
“But how will you get inside, Pen? Visiting hours ended a long time ago.”
“You’d…uh, be surprised,” I replied. “And don’t wait up for me, I may be here all night.” (Again, a statement as true as George Washington could have given.)
“But—” I could hear the concern in my aunt’s voice.
“Gotta go. Give Spencer my love. I’ll see you soon. Bye.”
I climbed out of my bed. The hospital didn’t provide much in the way of clothing—I wasn’t walking the halls in that opened-back nightshirt they gave me—but fortunately I found a terrycloth robe in a plastic bag hanging in the tiny cubicle that passed for a bathroom. I donned that and a pair of blue, rubber-soled socks I found (also swathed in vinyl) in the dressing table.
I retrieved my purse. Then I crept out of my hospital room, into the dimly lit corridor. I didn’t risk taking the elevator, for fear of being spotted. Instead I found the stairwell and went down one flight. The corridors on the third floor were as quiet as the fourth, and I made my way to Brainert’s room without being seen by any staff or patients.
I found my friend sitting up in bed, illuminated by a pool of light, papers scattered across his silver meal table. He squinted through his unbandaged eye at the pages he’d been writing. I had no doubt Brainert was attempting to re-create the research that was stolen from him during the assault.
“I didn’t appreciate your calling my aunt,” I announced. “If I’d wanted to worry her, I would have phoned her myself.”
“Pen, you’re back—” He looked up at the sound of my voice, and the color drained from his face. “My God! What happened?”
I slid a padded fiberglass chair next to Brainert’s bed and told him about my evening, in reverse order.
“You’re sure you were run off the road deliberately? It wasn’t just an accident?” Brainert asked when I was through telling him about my Allstate moment.
“Trust me, this was no accident. The driver rammed my bumper at an angle, just enough to push my Saturn off the ramp and into a tree. I didn’t get a look at the driver, but I know before I passed out that he got out of his vehicle and searched my car. He was looking for the treasure, Brainert. I’m sure he thought I’d retrieved it at the mansion.”
“Did you?” Brainert asked excitedly.
“We’ll get to that later.”
Brainert nodded. “It sounds as if your attacker was lying in wait for you.”
“Apparently. Unless it was Raymond Chesley, in which case he followed me. He did have a motive to kill his father, and he pretty much fits the description of our mutual assailant, down to a raspy voice caused by a bad case of the sniffles.”
“What about Claymore Chesley? Could he have been stalking your movements?”
“That seems really unlikely. What is possible, however, is that he had your code-breaking papers and figured out what the treasure was. He could have arrived at the mansion to steal it, but saw me leaving and assumed I’d gotten it first.”
“Yes, Pen, yes. That’s very possible.”
“I have one more theory,” I said. “Did you know
that Nelson Spinner was working for Peter Chesley, helping the old man archive his extensive library?”
Braniert blinked. “I had no idea.”
“So Spinner never indicated to you that he may have had direct contact with the Phelps editions, or that he knew the books were in the Chesley mansion?”
“Never,” Brainert replied.
“Now tell me one more thing. This is very important. Did you contact Nelson Spinner tonight?”
“Yes, I did. I called him and asked him to research a piece of information for me. He refused. Said he had papers to grade—”
“What time was this?”
“Right after you left for Newport. When he turned down my request, I immediately called Sadie and she helped me out.”
“Did you tell Spinner that I was going to Newport?”
Brainert paled. “I…mentioned it to him…in passing…oh, my God, Penelope, you don’t think my colleague…”
“Yes, I do, Brainert. And I’m sure you boasted that you were on the verge of solving the Poe Code mystery—”
“Not on the verge. I solved the mystery, Pen. Or my end of it. It all depends on what you found at the mansion. So what did you find?”
I drew the cell phone out of my purse, called up the images on the tiny screen. “There were four portraits on the wall, hanging above a Victorian-era globe that was definitely a part of the Mystic House collection. Look at the images and tell me what you see.”
I handed Brainert the phone. He studied the artistic renderings, first. “Nothing here,” he said with undisguised disappointment.
Then he shifted to the first photographic image.
I rose to look over his shoulder. “I think I’ve seen this photo before,” I said.
“It’s not a photo, Pen. It’s a daguerreotype—silver etched on glass,” Brainert clarified. “And this”—he tapped the cell phone screen—“has to be a copy, made of paper. This image is not new. It’s well known, taken in the final year of Poe’s life. The original is in the Brown University Library collection.”
The Ghost and the Dead Man's Library Page 20
