by E. R. Torre
A grim thought, considering John Robinson’s ultimate fate. But there was no malice in her words. If anything, she sounded nostalgic. Perhaps this was inevitable when working in John Robinson’s home.
“Unlike the movies, he didn’t run around with guns blazing, solving crimes?”
Carol giggled.
“Heavens no. He was repulsed by guns, at least toward the end of his life.”
“Why?”
Carol shrugged.
“In the earlier days, he was part of a real macho group of actors. You know, rebels. Their hobbies were motorcycles, fast cars, women, booze, and guns. Every few months a group of them headed out to Africa or Alaska or any remote place to hunt exotic animals. It cost plenty, from what I heard, but they had the money and they had the time. After one of those trips, Mr. Robinson came back, put away the hunting gear, and never brought it out again.”
“Why did he stop?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Carol said. “Perhaps Mr. Robinson was like my father. He used to hunt for food and it gave him no pleasure to kill. Over time, the very act proved too difficult, so he stopped.”
Judith walked into the dining room. She showered and changed.
“What are you two talking about?” she asked and smiled.
“This and that,” Carol said. She pulled out a chair opposite mine and Judith sat down. In moments she served Judith an omelet and hot tea.
“You’re looking good,” I said.
“Just good?” Judith replied. The smile on her face grew larger.
“Great. That’s what I meant to say. You’re looking great.”
Judith shook her head and dug into the omelet. As she ate her breakfast I leaned back in my chair and looked around. To her, all this was just another day. The mansion, the lake, the Housekeeper. I shook my head.
The place had the air of a movie cliché, the large, gothic dining room, its long wooden table, the fireplace. Even the window overlooking the frozen lake seemed to be something straight out of a movie. Sinclair wasn’t the only person living in his own private film.
The thought of him made me feel sympathetic to his plight. Though he drove an expensive car, it was clear from the conversation I overheard that even at his age he worked for his money. In that way, if no other, he was a kindred soul, one who probably envied this estate as much as I did.
How many times had Sinclair wondered if this could –should- have been his? He had that chance, and it slipped through his fingers. He was a visitor here, just as I was. It was a powerful motive...
"Enjoy your meal?" Judith said.
"How do you live in a place like this?" I said, ignoring her question.
"It’s quite easy,” Judith said. She smiled at her joke but the smile faded quickly. “I've been here all my life. I couldn't imagine living anywhere else."
"Your Grandfather left you a beautiful place.”
I rose from my chair and walked to the fire place. On the mantle were several family photographs. I recognized John Robinson and Judith. In one photograph, John Robinson stood next to a couple that held a baby in their arms. I pointed to the baby.
“You?” I asked.
Judith nodded.
“These are your parents?”
“Yes.”
“Do they live here, too?”
The cheer in her face evaporated. Once again I had intruded on unpleasant memories.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry. I seem to have a bad habit of doing that lately."
Judith composed herself.
"It’s OK,” she said. “My father and mother divorced when I was only a year old. My father was John Robinson's only son. He...he didn't do much, other than live a fancy life. His greatest joy was flying. He had three private aircraft, two of which we still have stored in the Manville airport.”
“And the third?”
Judith shook her head and said nothing. She pushed her chair away from the table.
“His only ambition was to travel the world,” she continued. “Granddad didn't think much of this, but humored him. Off the coast of Greece my father's plane hit a storm and he crashed into the sea. His body washed ashore a week later. All of this happened when I was three years old."
Judith showed little outward emotion as she told the story.
"My mother was a lot like him, though she’d deny this,” Judith continued. “She was never what you would call a caring parent. At least not with me. She was an actress from Minnesota. When my father married her, it was his second marriage and her third. The only reason they got married was because of me. Mom got pregnant and Granddad insisted they marry. He was old fashioned that way."
"Anyway, after I was born, their relationship fell apart," Judith continued. "By my first birthday they were divorced. I heard she eventually settled down and married a fellow Minnesotan. She moved to his home town and retired from the spotlight. She has her own life, her own family. She doesn't bother me, and I don't bother her."
"Your Grandfather became your guardian."
"Yeah. My mother allowed my father to have sole custody. When he died, Grandpa took care of me. My mother had no problem with that arrangement. It was probably the nicest thing she could have done for me. She knew Grandpa thought the world of me."
I nodded and grabbed my cup of coffee. I finished it off and gazed at the doors leading out of the dining room.
"Ready to see the rest of the place?” Judith asked.
I placed the empty cup on the table.
“Absolutely.”
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
It took the better part of an hour to walk through the first floor of the mansion. It wasn’t so much a home as a museum of movie memorabilia as well as a warehouse to display all the interests of John Robinson. Posters, plaques, and awards lined the hallways. One enormous room was devoted to memorabilia from Robinson’s most successful films. Included among the booty were items from Collision Course and Death Highway.
In that room, behind a glass case, was a pair of prop handguns from those films. Not only did the films share almost identical casts and crews, but they also used the same props. I thought I’d seen it all, until we wandered into the next room. In that room was a large assortment of paintings, both recent and old. I recognized a few of the artists here and there, and Judith noted the value of the collection was incalculable.
In the next room we found more memorabilia of Robinson’s work. That room, however, focused on his television work. A plaque commemorated Robinson's performance in a television show from the fifties. Next to it was a suit worn in one of those shows. It was a swashbuckler outfit. Almost lost between the outfit and the plaque was a genuine pencil sketch by Pablo Picasso, circa 1932.
When we were done with the first floor we headed to the second. For some reason, the walk up the stairs winded me and I felt sweat beading on my forehead.
We peeked into John Robinson's bedroom, the largest of the upper floor rooms. It looked as it did on the day its occupant died, unused yet impeccable. Its large bed, lined with what looked like a red velvet bedcover, was lavish and decadent. We both laughed at the wooden stairs –two steps, really- propped by the side of the bed.
“It wasn’t for Grandpa,” Judith insisted, though the bed was built higher off the ground than any I’d seen. “He used to have a pair of small dogs, and he worried they’d hurt themselves jumping off the bed.”
As she explained this, I found myself short of breath. The climb up the stairs had really taken its toll. Either that or I was horribly out of shape. A sudden chill passed through my body and a pungent odor sprang from somewhere deep within the room. It settled in my sinus and almost made me gag.
“I can smell them.”
“What?”
“The dogs.”
Judith sniffed the air but shook her head.
“I don’t smell anything,” she said. “Charlie, our last dog, was put to sleep over ten years ago.”
“You don’t smell anything?”
“M
aybe I’m used to it,” she said. “It’s really getting to you?”
“Yeah, I…it’s all right.”
“I’ll have to talk to Carol,” Judith said.
I smiled but felt uncomfortable. In time, the odor faded until it was simply there, neither bitter nor overwhelming. At the far end of the room was a large door. It led into an elaborate marble bathroom. The bathroom was in excellent condition, as if it had been constructed yesterday. But it was over forty years old. The smell of dog was replaced with different fragrances: cologne, aftershave, or mouthwash. I surveyed the counter, but it was completely bare.
I felt another chill as we stepped back into the bedroom. Mingling with the odors was a wave of cold air. It was hard to keep from shivering.
“And now, my favorite room,” Judith said.
We stepped out of the bedroom and walked across the hallway to an oversized set of double doors. As we approached, I couldn’t stop my teeth from chattering. If Judith noticed, she didn’t say anything.
She stopped before the doors and turned to face me.
“I’ve spent most of my childhood here,” she said. With a flourish, she opened the double doors and stepped inside.
Before us was an enormous library stocked with shelf upon shelf of books. Between the bookcases were still more memorabilia and paintings, wherever there was space. The room was bigger than my local library, and carried far more books.
“Wow.”
"This isn’t just any old ordinary library,” Judith said. “The first section has your casual reading, but as we walk deeper inside, you’ll find the fruits of another of Grandpa’s hobbies: His collection of first edition and rare books."
I stared at the books for several long seconds.
"Your mouth is open," Judith said.
I closed my mouth and let out a laugh. For the moment, the chills were gone.
"I'm sorry if I seem so shocked. This whole trip has been overwhelming. I might as well be stepping on the surface of the moon."
“I know the feeling,” Judith said.
I scanned the shelves, amazed to find what appeared to be a complete collection of first edition Ernest Hemingway books. On another shelf, early editions of Edgar Allan Poe's works. Beyond that Faulkner. Raymond Chandler. Dashiell Hammett. Fredric Brown. Ross MacDonald, Robert E. Howard, Abdul Alhazred. Impossibly ancient copies of the Bible, Koran, Arabian Nights, the Iliad, and the Odyssey. Another shelf carried hefty oversized books hidden behind a glass case. Their spines were old and frazzled. Only a couple of the spines displayed labels, and those that were visible were written in Latin or Arabian text.
“He called it his Library of Alexandria,” Judith said.
Beyond the oversized books was a collection of scripts, forty five in total. It was the entire collection of screenplays to each of John Robinson's movies. On another shelf was another, larger set of scripts, movies that John Robinson considered but ultimately rejected. Below that was an impressive collection of television scripts, further testament to how in demand he was.
I turned away from one wall to another. Mark Twain. James Joyce. Hawthorne. Fitzgerald.
I looked back at Judith. Behind her was a window, in front of which was the only thing that appeared out of place in this room and, indeed, the house: a desktop computer. It was an older model, clunky and sporting a faded white body. It was all the rage maybe seven or eight years ago. Beyond the computer and past the oversized window was the frozen lake. From this height, a hilly plain was visible. It stretched out into the distance. There was no telling how far the Robinson property extended. It was all hers. Everything.
It was overwhelming.
I walked to the table and sat down. Judith stood silently behind me.
“I can’t imagine what it must be like, living here.”
Judith’s eyes dropped. She sat next to me and before the computer and stroked the keys.
“It’s not as glamorous as it may seem,” she said. She hit the keys with more force. "I shouldn’t have brought you here. I must seem like a braggart.”
“I thought it was your favorite place.”
“It is,” she said. She offered a humorless laugh. The good vibes from the tour were fading fast. “Whenever I come here, I can’t help but remember the times I’ve sat here, reading. It was like my real life away from his life.”
“Your Grandfather?”
“Yes. For all intents and purposes, I was an orphan at the age of two. I was raised, if such a term could be used, by a legend, a man who lived on a pedestal that was far out of my, or just about anyone’s, reach. Maybe that’s why I rebelled in my teen years. It’s certainly why I was drawn to the library. Grandpa would have killed me if he found me going through any of his collectible books. Luckily, there were enough ordinary books stashed in here to pass the time. By reading them, I’d escape to other worlds, worlds not completely dominated by John Robinson.”
She took a deep breath and stared out the window.
“Where you see treasures, I see mementos. I can look at this stuff, I can admire it, I can even desire it, but I mustn't touch. I mustn’t touch any of it."
She stopped talking but continued hitting the keyboard. I said nothing. Perhaps it was tough to live as the custodian of someone else’s life. Especially when you’re finding your own. She continued hitting the keyboard, oblivious to me.
Something about it...
I watched as she hit the keys, and it triggered a memory. More than a memory, a feeling. Annoyance. Annoyance and the need to…sleep?
With a start, I realized what it was. During that first night in Viktor, at the Green Manor Inn, I was trying to sleep, but it was hard to do so because of the storm outside...
And something else...
Karl Walker's typing! He was hitting the keyboard of a computer. Yes, a laptop.
Of course it was a laptop! As a system analyst, Karl worked with computers. Hell, he probably couldn’t live without them. So why wouldn't he bring one here? But had I ever seen him with it?
I thought back to our previous meetings. Each time he carried a pile of papers and was constantly sorting through them. He also carried a black briefcase.
That’s it!
It had to be where he kept his laptop!
Another thought jumped into my mind: KarlsKube.
Could it be a password? Had Karl tried to give me a computer password?
His last words to me came back in full force: I'm close to finding out what happened here.
The chill returned.
It will make a hell of a story.
I rose to my feet.
"I have to go," I told Judith and turned to the door leading out. Judith ran to my side.
"What? Why?"
She followed me out of the library. I headed to the stairs leading to the ground floor.
"I have to talk to the Sheriff about something," I said. But, just as the words left my mouth, I had a very different thought. Could I trust him? He was one of Karl’s suspects in John Robinson's death, even though he was supposedly out of town at the time. Was he? Was he really? And if he killed Robinson, then it was certain he also killed Karl.
I came to a stop at the top of the stairs. What about talking to Deputy Livingstone? Could he be trusted? Dark suspicions gain entered my mind. Could Livingstone have killed Karl for reasons completely unrelated to John Robinson's death? Might he have been enraged because Karl’s loose talk endangered his job?
I remained in place. Seconds before I was so sure of my actions. Now, I was paralyzed.
Judith stopped next to me. I looked at her, then past her.
My head felt light, my sight blurred. The pungent odor of a dog came on once again, potent and nauseating. I heard a scratching sound, then a distant bark.
Judith was still there, standing beside me. But she turned into a dull gray shadow. Directly behind her, exiting from the library, was John Robinson. At his feet was a small terrier.
Judith’s Grandfather and his pet wa
lked past us and continued down the stairs. His hair was gray. He was older than the last time I saw him. As he walked down the stairs, he faded. His vision was replaced by another at the bottom of the stairs. This John Robinson, a younger man, confronted Sheriff Burton Chandler. They argued viciously with each other. And I could hear them!
“Why are you doing this?” Chandler yelled. “You know that I’ve—”
“I know what you want me to know. The reality is something different, isn’t it?”
“What are you implying?”
“Implying, hell, I’ll tell it to your face—”
Chandler and Robinson’s argument was joined by two other voices. A still younger John Robinson materialized only a couple of feet from Chandler. He was arguing with an equally younger Lewis Sinclair. Their voices overlapped and blurred until nothing anyone said was clear.
Yet another voice joined them, this time from the upper floor. A much older John Robinson paced within his bedroom. He was alone and on the phone, screaming at whoever was on the other line. Before the bedroom door appeared another John Robinson. This one was arguing and gesturing to a man in a butler’s uniform. Just a few steps from him appeared another Robinson, and another appeared on the staircase, and yet another appeared a few feet away. Each and every one of them, numbering in the tens, then the twenties, then fifties and more, were screaming. Their voices blurred until they sounded like the roar of thunder. The mansion was full of a lifetime of angry John Robinsons.
I closed my eyes tight and pressed my hands to my ears.
"Please go away," I begged. I felt faint and couldn’t stand. I dropped to my knees and fought off a wave of nausea.
And then, just as suddenly as it started, all went silent.
I opened my eyes. The interior of the house was empty and all the visions were gone. The daylight filtered through the mansion's windows. I cautiously removed my hands from my ears and was greeted with a peaceful silence.
It didn’t last.
A noise, almost imperceptible, came from the upper floor hallway. I followed the noise with my eyes until I realized it was coming from the library.
A very elderly John Robinson stepped out of there and walked past Judith and me. His eyes were pale blue, his face withered with age. He headed down the stairs, oblivious to our presence. He was dressed in a light ski outfit, the same one—
