Night Mask

by William W. Johnstone

  * * *

  Lani decided to get her hair done and gently pump the stylist for information. Leo found a seedy-looking bar that catered mainly to the older crowd, and decided to concentrate there. They would meet back at the motel early that afternoon to compare notes.

  “That must have been the most hated family in all of New York State,” Leo said, after sugaring his coffee and taking a sip. “Just the mention of their name brought a full hour of talk at the bar.”

  “Yeah,” Lani agreed. “All the women at the salon had something to say about the Longwoods. You go first.”

  “The elder Longwoods had a chauffeur. He’s retired and living just south of Glens Falls. Name is Karl—with a K—Muller. His wife, Anna, was the cook and boss of the household help. I want to talk to him.”

  “My stylist has an uncle, who retired from the police force here just after the Longwoods were murdered. According to her, who got her information from him, both the Longwood boys should have been strangled at birth, and their bodies burned and the ashes sealed in concrete for all time.”

  “Nice boys.”

  “Oh, just delightful. Seems Jack and Jim were constantly in trouble. The parents bought them out every time. They would offer people enormous sums of money to drop the charges. Only a few people didn’t accept, and a couple of them ended up dead.”

  Leo did some soft but highly passionate cussing. “It never fails, does it, Lani? No matter what side of the tracks they come from, it’s always the same. Parents refuse to see their kids as anything other than sweet little angels. It’s always somebody else’s fault. Did the elder Longwood hire the killings done?”

  She shook her head. “The townspeople think the boys did it.”

  “Good God! How young were they when the killings started?”

  “Six.”

  Leo almost dropped his coffee cup. “You have got to be kidding!”

  “No. We’re dealing with a pair of real nuts here. Did you find out about the other brother and sister?”

  “No. No one mentioned that.”

  “Actually they’re half brother and sister. From an earlier marriage. Last address was Boston.”

  “So what do you think?”

  “Let’s drive up to interview this chauffeur, and then head for Boston. We can always come back here.”

  “When do you want to leave?”

  “How about right now?”

  * * *

  Cal Denning checked the program log, found that the commercial that seemed odd to him would not be played again for several hours, and pulled the cart, taking it back to his office. He locked his door and sat down, sticking the cart into the playback unit. He put on earphones and hit the play button, leaning back in his chair. He listened to the commercial twice. There was something wrong with it. But damned if he could figure out what it was. Something was just not ... well, right with it.

  He transferred the commercial over to reel to reel and slowed it down. Still, he could not pick out exactly what was the matter. He slowed it down as far as he could and listened.

  There! There it was. Behind the words and music were other words. What the hell was going on here? He played it again and again and again. Tam. Tam. Tam... no, Tammy. That was it. Tammy. Lar. Lar. Lar. Son. Tammy Larson.

  Tammy Larson. Who the hell was Tammy Larson? And what was her name doing on an automobile commercial? He removed his earphones and stopped the tape. Cal took the cart back to the control room, waiting until the DJ had stepped out for a moment before he replaced the tape in the rack. He was unaware that another employee of KSIN had seen him enter the small room. The employee smiled at the furtiveness of Cal. He was so amateurish. Quite silly-looking actually. Looked like something out of a Peter Sellers movie.

  Oh, well. No matter. This was of little consequence. Whatever Cal had discovered, could be taken care of easily. This was going to be fun.

  The employee carefully unwrapped a small package and placed it in the far reaches of a drawer in Dick Hale’s desk. Along with another object that had been placed there the past week. Trickie-Dickie was going to be in for a shock before long. And no one was more deserving of a good shock to the system than that obnoxious, arrogant, pompous son of a bitch.

  The employee was chuckling, furtively slipping out the side door of Dick Hale’s office.

  * * *

  “You don’t have to talk to us, Mr. Muller,” Leo said to the man who stood on the porch. “I want to make that clear right from the beginning. We’re California cops. We have no authority here in New York.”

  “It’s about the twins, isn’t it?” Karl asked. “Jack and Jim.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lani told him.

  “Come on in. I’ll be glad to answer any questions I can.”

  * * *

  Back in Albany, Det. Bill Zanetis slowly replaced the receiver in its cradle. The caller had refused to give his name, but the voice was young. Sounded like a teenager. Probably out parked and getting it on with his girlfriend. Said he had spotted a car parked in the woods behind the Longwood Estate late last night. He’d written down the license number. Zanetis ran it and got a response back quickly. Rented car. A local one, from the airport rental.

  “Those California cops snooping around, I betcha,” the detective muttered, reaching for his coat. He left the squad room without telling anyone where he was going.

  * * *

  Anna brought them coffee and fresh, hot, home-baked cinnamon rolls, and Karl asked her to sit and join them.

  “Evil,” Karl said. “Those boys. Evil through and through. The bad seed ran in the whole family. Mother, father, children. All the children. Even those from the first marriage.”

  “Do you know where the kids from the first marriage are living?” Lani asked.

  “They were living in Boston. That’s all I know. I pray to God every night that I never see any of them again.”

  Anna nodded her head in solemn agreement. “On our knees we do. The both of us. Together.”

  “If these people were so ... evil, why did you continue working for them?” Leo asked.

  “The money,” Karl replied honestly. “The family was so despised they could not get people to work for them. They paid us enormous sums of money. Our health insurance is paid to this day from the estate. For life. Forever. Until we die. We had no expenses, so we could save every penny. Our food we ate there. Our uniforms were furnished. Our living quarters were wonderful. For enough money, one will ignore the screams in the night.”

  “Screams?” Lani leaned forward.

  “Yes,” Karl said. “Occasionally, from the basement. I don’t know what went on down there. There are several large rooms. All with steel doors. All locked. Not even the police know about them.”

  “Why not?”

  “A panel must be moved to get to the rooms. The lever is on the right side, facing the panel. If the power is off, they can be opened by hand. Remove the two knots in the wood in the center of the wall. The panels slide open, left and right, with a bit of force.”

  “Have you ever been in those rooms?” Leo asked.

  “Gott, nein!” Karl slipped into his mother tongue. “I would never go in there. It must be a chamber of horrors.”

  “Tell us everything you know that the boys have done,” Leo urged.

  Halfway through the telling, Lani excused herself and went into the bathroom and vomited up her coffee and cinnamon rolls. Two minutes later, Leo matched her output in another bathroom.

  When they returned, Anna was crying and Karl was ashen-faced. “I am dreadfully sorry,” he said. “But you wanted to know it all.”

  “But the police ... !” Lani said.

  “What can be done, if no one brings charges or the people drop them?” Anna said. “Do you have any idea of the power that can be bought with half a billion dollars in the hands of a ruthless man?”

  Both Leo and Lani thought of Dennis Potter and nodded their heads.

  “Do either of you know, if the boys
were ever committed to a mental institution?” Lani asked.

  “I don’t believe so,” Karl said. “We worked for the Longwoods from the time the boys were six or seven, until the murders. After that, we would have no knowledge.”

  “How did you happen to go to work for the Longwoods?” Leo asked.

  “They interviewed us in Dresden, then brought us over from Germany. Arranged for our citizenship... everything. We ... had no idea what we were getting into.” “You both went into the house, didn’t you?” Anna asked.

  “Yes,” Lani admitted. “Last night. We broke in.”

  “Don’t go back,” Anna warned them. “Don’t. That house is just as evil as those who once lived in it. It lives.”

  “It ... lives?” Leo asked.

  “Believe it,” Karl backed up his wife. “It can’t be destroyed. It won’t let you destroy it.”

  “Mr. Muller—” Lani said patiently.

  The old man held up a big hand. “Listen to me. Do you know how old that mansion is?”

  “Oh ... forty years old, I suppose,” Leo guessed.

  Anna smiled. “It was built in 1801. Check the county records, if you doubt me.”

  “After the murders, and the police had finished their investigation, I tried to burn it down,” Karl said. “I set fire to the drapes. The other drape put out the flames. I poured gasoline on the carpet. It wouldn’t burn. It just wouldn’t burn. I thought I had bad gasoline. I went into town and bought more. Nothing in the house would burn. Then the house tried to kill us, both Anna and me. Drape cords became as snakes, whipping around, tangling in our feet, wrapping around our necks. Knives from the kitchen flew through the air. Show them, Anna.”

  The woman stood up and pulled up her blouse. Lani and Leo could see the long scar on her stomach. “I almost died from that wound.”

  “I can believe that,” Leo said.

  Karl pointed a finger at the cops. “You hunt them down. Every member of that family. You drive a stake through their hearts. Jack and Jim, their half brother and sister. Those are the four remaining with the bad blood. Kill them, and the house will die.”

  * * *

  Outside the Muller house, the detectives sat in their rented car for a few moments, both of them shaken by the words they’d heard. Lani finally broke the silence.

  “The house is alive? It can’t be destroyed? Kill the four remaining Longwood children, and drive stakes through their hearts? Jesus Christ, Leo!”

  “What the hell are we dealing with here, Lani?”

  “Do you believe in the supernatural, Leo?”

  Leo was silent for a time. “Drive,” he finally said, as dusk settled around them. When they were on the road back to Albany, for they had decided to spend at least one more day in the city, Leo said, “Lani, I was raised a Catholic. If a person believes in God, the devil, angels, Heaven, Hell, then one believes to a certain extent in the supernatural. Some theologians might disagree with that, but that’s their option. Do I believe in werewolves and vampires? No.”

  “I’m not sure you answered my question.”

  “That’s all you’re going to get.”

  They rode for a few miles in silence. Lani said, “Drapes coming to life and putting out the flames. Carpet that won’t burn after being saturated with gasoline. Secret rooms in the basement that the local cops couldn’t find. Drape cords that suddenly turn into snakes, or something like that.” She shook her head. “It’s getting a bit much, Leo.”

  “I want to check out the age of that mansion.”

  “And then?”

  “Cults, devil worship.”

  “I want to read what the newspapers have on file about the Longwood family ... all the way back to the beginning. As far as the files go.”

  “I want to go into that basement. Push on those knots and see if the wall really slides back.”

  “I want to check on Karl Muller.”

  “We’ll be busy tomorrow.”

  “You tired, Leo?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

  “Go to sleep. I’ll wake you up when we get to the motel. Go on. I’m not a bit tired.”

  Leo was asleep in moments. Lani glanced over at him and smiled. Good, solid, prodding Leo. A cop’s cop. Methodical, slow to anger. A bulldog on any case. Devoted family man. Everything about Leo was average. Average height, average build, neither handsome nor unattractive. He could go unnoticed in a crowd of three. But his courage was limitless. Lani and Leo made a good team, right from the beginning.

  She shook him awake at the motel, and he staggered off to his room. Lani took a bath and went to bed. She had nightmares about drapes that came alive, monsters lurking in the carpets of the Longwood mansion, and ropes and cords that turned into writhing snakes. She awakened tired. She took an ice-cold shower and that woke her up.

  Lani was reading the newspaper and working on her second cup of coffee in the dining room, when a story stopped her cold and caused her hand to tremble so badly she had to carefully put down the coffee cup. She read the story twice.

  “Hey, kid!” Leo said, sitting down and picking up the menu. “What’s up?”

  White-faced, she handed him the paper. Leo read, THE BODY OF ALBANY POLICE DEPARTMENT DET. BILL ZANETIS WAS FOUND LAST EVENING IN THE EMPTY SWIMMING POOL OF THE OLD LONGWOOD ESTATE, JUST OUTSIDE OF TOWN. A SPOKESPERSON FOR THE DEPARTMENT SAID THE DETECTIVE’S FOOT BECAME ENTANGLED IN AN OLD ROPE AND HE TRIPPED, FALLING ONTO THE CONCRETE FLOOR OF THE POOL, BREAKING HIS NECK ON IMPACT. THE ROPE WAS TWISTED SO INTRICATELY AROUND HIS ANKLES IT HAD TO BE CUT AWAY.

  Leo’s face was impassive as he laid the paper aside and thanked the waitress for the freshly poured cup of coffee. He ordered breakfast. When the waitress had left, he said, “Accidents happen, Lani.”

  “What rope, Leo? There was no rope by the pool.”

  “That we saw. It was dark.”

  “The moon was out, Leo! We both commented on how much light it was affording us.”

  “Now, you just settle down, Lani,” he whispered. “We’re dealing with some kooks here, not the devil.”

  “He was so tangled up in the rope it had to be cut away from his ankles, Leo.”

  “I read it. So? He panicked, and that made matters worse. You ever try to kick a garden hose from around your feet or ankles? I have. It’s a mess.”

  “We’re in over our heads, Leo.”

  “No, we’re not. Now you listen to me, Lani. I’ve never seen you so spooked. You know as well as me that everything has a logical explanation. We’ve worked too many murders together, kid. Get your cool back. We’ll solve this one.”

  The waitress brought their food, and Leo dug in. Lani picked at her breakfast. “Eat, eat!” Leo urged her. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us.”

  “I got a bad feeling, Leo.”

  “You constipated or something?”

  Lani laughed at the expression on his face and started eating. Leo could always make her feel better.

  Chapter 6

  They met back at the motel restaurant for lunch, and Lani’s mood had lifted considerably. Leo was in his usual good mood.

  “Karl Muller has a history of mental problems, Leo. He had a major breakdown just before the murders. Anna was confined for more than six months due to mental problems. Both of them were treated for hallucinations.”

  “So much for flying knives and drapes that come alive, and ropes that turn into snakes.”

  “Right. What’d you find out?”

  “The Longwood mansion is as old as the Mullers claim it to be. The original plans are on exhibit at a local museum. No hidden chambers or secret rooms to be found.”

  “Are we through here?”

  “I think so. For the time being. Let’s check out and head for Boston. I have an address for the half brother and sister.”

  * * *

  The same late afternoon that Lani and Leo were interviewing Karl and Anna Muller, Cal Denning had stopped on the way home for milk and bread. For reasons he coul
d not understand, he was jumpy. His stomach was all knotted up with tension. Once home, with a martini in his hand, all settled in the recliner to watch the news (not the news carried by KSIN), he began to feel better.

  Cal lived alone, up in the hills, in an A-frame with a lovely view. His nearest neighbors were more than a mile away. They never socialized, and that’s the way he liked it. He didn’t even know their names.

  Cal was not an especially unfriendly type of person, he just liked his privacy and his cats. Twice married and twice divorced, Cal had made up his mind a long time back that he was better off single. He settled down for the early news and took a sip of his martini. One of his cats suddenly yowled loudly and made a dash for the kitchen. Cal thought nothing of it. Mice were not an infrequent thing.

  “Get ’im, Mr. Nixon,” Cal said, and turned his attentions back to the TV.

  The last thing he remembered was a terrible, painful roaring in his head, and Cal Denning’s world turned black.

  Since he had the next two days off, he would not be missed by anyone at the station complex.

  The big male cat, Mr. Nixon, leaped at the intruder and landed on the trespasser’s back, digging in with his hind claws and ripping at the person’s face and neck with his front claws. With a scream of pain and rage, the cat was slung away and the bloodied individual stumbled for the back door, blood pouring from a deeply slashed face, the tire iron used to smash Cal’s head firmly held in a gloved hand. The denim-clad person disappeared over a ridge.

  In the house, Cal stirred once and moaned, then he was still.

  * * *

  Lani and Leo struck out cold in Boston. They checked out every Longwood on the tax records in Boston and surrounding communities, but none were the right ones. Then they went to the newspapers for help and accessed the microfilm and computers for anything that had the name Longwood in it. They found lots of Longwoods, but not the right ones. Then they went to the libraries to ask for help. Again, they found Longwoods, but not the right ones. It was a very frustrating four days. On the evening of the fourth day, after a hot soak in the tub, and then sprawled out on the bed, Lani decided to call the office just to see what was happening back in Hancock County.