by Gideon, John
Stu had produced it from his jacket pocket shortly before they parted company the night before, just as Liquid Larry was throwing out all the other patrons in order to close for the night. Stu had planned to give the note to Carl all along, he’d said. He was certain that Lorna’s suicide somehow bolstered his theory of an evil presence in Greely’s Cove. Lorna had felt that presence, insisted Stu, and had been sickened by it. In some unimaginable way, it had touched her and had made her life unbearable.
Carl now pulled the note from his corduroy jacket, a rumpled slip of paper with an uneven tear along the top edge. The scrawled handwriting was barely recognizable as Lorna’s. He tried to read it aloud as Lindsay drove with both hands on the wheel, her eyes locked straight ahead, her jaw set.
Tried to read it aloud. The terror of Lorna’s final moments must have wracked her limbs and set her body to trembling, making writing next to impossible. The script contained a few of her trademark loops and swirls, but other than these it showed little of her artist’s even hand. Mostly tremulous streaks and smears, mere approximations of letters and words.
Ca—l—
Don’t try t- love it. Itl- kill you, l—ke me. Ge—away.
Carl spoke the words that he thought he saw: “Carl: Don’t try to love it. It’ll kill you, like me. Get away.”
Lindsay should have responded predictably: Something evil, my foot! Hallucinations and nightmares had obviously plagued the survivors of Greely’s Cove, as any rational, twentieth-century adult could plainly see. The suicide note was the product of a sick and tortured mind, a meaningless jumble of half-formed thoughts and fears. Lorna herself had probably hallucinated all kinds of threats, which is hardly remarkable for someone who’s sick enough to kill herself.
But Lindsay did not react as Carl thought she should. Her face betrayed fresh misery at this small taste of the hell her sister had suffered in the final moments of life.
Carl was slightly taken aback when she asked, “And just what do you make of all this?”
He was about to say something, though he didn’t know exactly what, when a break in the undergrowth appeared on the right side of the road. A wooden arrow, wobbly on its ancient post, pointed north into the forest. Traces of white paint applied decades earlier rendered the message: Whiteleather Place.
They turned into the narrow, twisting lane, and the tires of Lindsay Moreland’s Saab crunched over a damp layer of ash-colored rock chips. A canopy of mature deciduous trees and conifers nearly choked off the daylight, forcing Lindsay to turn on her headlights. The dense overhead network of needles and limbs, already saturated by the winter storm, issued huge droplets of water that splatted noisily now and again on the windshield.
“How much farther?” she asked.
“Just a quarter-mile,” answered Carl, gazing out the rain-streaked window into the woody dusk. “You know, coming out here brings back a lot of memories.”
“Familiar with this area, are you?”
“When I was a kid, my buddies and I used to play here. We built forts in the woods and attacked enemy convoys on this very road.”
“Enemy convoys?”
Little boys’ games, he explained. Guns, cowboys, army. This forest was among their favorite stomping grounds, for it had most everything that kids love: grand trees to climb, little bubbling brooks for wading in, frogs and snakes to capture, myriad clearings to explore, and a zillion hiding places for playing guns.
“Stu and I had a good friend who lived in the mansion, named Renzy Dawkins. His father was a big insurance executive, real hard-charger, who caught the ferry to Seattle every morning. When the weather was bad, we played in the mansion—if Renzy’s mother was in the mood to put up with a lot of shooting, that is.”
He made his hand into a “gun” and gave out an explosive sound from the back of his throat. Lindsay thought it sounded like someone who had swallowed a bug and offered that the boys must have driven Mrs. Dawkins crazy.
“She seemed willing enough to put up with us,” said Carl, letting himself believe that Lindsay was warming to him little by little. “The Dawkinses were great people. They were firm believers in charity—even to the extent that they sort of adopted a poor family who lived over near the marina. Every month or so Ted Dawkins—Renzy’s dad—would bring them a box of groceries and some clothes, a few other household odds and ends, maybe a little extra spending money for their kid. I can even remember their name: Nistler. Ted always said he felt better about giving directly to the needy, trying to make a difference in just one or two cases, rather than signing a check and handing it over to the United Way.”
“Did it work? Make a difference, I mean?”
“That’s debatable, I suppose. Mr. Nistler ran off one day, never to be seen again, and his son grew up to be a petty drug pusher. Landed in the joint, I hear. Maybe the United Way is the way to go after all. At any rate, it’s the thought that counts, I guess—or at least that’s what Lorna always said. She was very close to Alita Dawkins. They worked together on community projects, art shows, that kind of thing. You may not have known this, but Alita was sort of Lorna’s strong shoulder while she was pregnant with Jeremy-—even rode along to the hospital when she went into labor. During those last few weeks before the birth, I saw almost as much of Alita as I did my wife. It was like having a day nurse around.”
As they rounded curve after curve, the tangle of undergrowth thickened along the road, and the forest seemed duskier and less inviting than Carl remembered it. Ragged clutches of holly and Scotch broom grew in profusion among the trees. Morning glories festooned the trunks, and the mossy bark had a sooty, brittle look that suggested sickness. Then the tangle suddenly gave way to a clearing that swirled with ground fog. The Saab passed unimpeded between two gateposts of crumbly, cinnamon-colored brick. The spiked wrought-iron gate had long ago rusted off its hinges.
Whiteleather Place loomed above its lake of fog, a Victorian relic that dated from the 1890s. Built of the same cinnamon-colored brick, it boasted an imposing, three-story tower at a front corner, with small dormers set into an elaborate roofline that rose to a needlelike lightning arrester. An enormous wooden porch with arched ceilings swept around the ground floor, sagging here and there under the weight of time, needing repair and paint. Terra-cotta inserts adorned the many gables and windows, though rain and wind had defiled their elegance, giving them the look of filigreed tumors. Attending the great house was a graveyard of madronas, now warped with decay, their gnarled and naked branches rising from the mist in a silent, frozen hosannaof death. The once-lavish shrubbery had become a chaotic wreckage of yellowed twigs that cowered in the undulating ground fog.
Lindsay parked the Saab in the circular drive, set the brake, and switched off the engine. She stared a few seconds at a tatterd gazebo that sat like a forlorn orphan in the yard, clothed in dead, crinkly vines.
“This place looks like something out of Edgar Allan Poe,” she said, suppressing a shiver.
“It’s really gone to seed since the old days,” said Carl, “which is a shame. When I was a kid, it was a showplace.” His eyes landed on Lindsay’s face and narrowed. “What’s this I see? A little case of the creeps?”
“Not a little one, a big one.”
“You’re ruining your tough-as-nails image, you know. You stockbrokers aren’t supposed to have romantic streaks.”
“It’s not my image I’m worried about.”
They got out of the car and trudged up an eroding flagstone walk to the porch, where a neat brass sign hung on a balustraded post: Dr. Hadrian Craslowe.
“It doesn’t say doctor of what,” observed Carl.
“If you’re a patient, you’re supposed to know.”
They climbed the steps and paused in the dank shadow of the porch, where the air seemed ten degrees colder.
“Do you see a walk-in sign or a doorbell?” Lindsay asked. Carl saw only a heavy brass knocker—a malevolent lion’s head whose beard was the handle, which he gripped and let
fall three times, generating cold thumps that hinted of dark secrets within. They waited, straining to hear sounds of someone coming to answer, shifting on their feet and glancing nervously at each other while pretending not to.
Without warning, the dual oaken doors swung open on croaking hinges, revealing a tall, straight-backed woman who looked barely thirty. She had sad almond eyes of deep brown, flawless olive skin, and raven-colored hair pulled back in a severe bun. She wore a floor-length skirt of charcoal wool and a funereal satin blouse with long, billowy sleeves. A bone cameo hung at her throat on a velvet band. “Yes?” Her tone was low, almost secretive.
“I’m Lindsay Moreland, and this is Carl Trosper. We have an appointment with Dr. Craslowe.”
“Yes, of course,” said the woman. “I am Mrs. Ianthe Pauling, assistant to Dr. Craslowe. Won’t you please come in?” Carl thought her speech sounded English, though it lacked Hannie Hazelford’s broad and lordly vowels. “The doctor will be with you momentarily,” said Mrs. Pauling.
She took their wraps and ushered them through a dark foyer into a parlor lit by Tiffany gas fixtures that some previous resident had long ago converted to electricity.
“Please make yourselves comfortable,” she said, indicating an antique sofa that stood on carved, clawlike feet. “Dr. Craslowe won’t be long.” She glided soundlessly out of the room, scarcely stirring the somber air.
“God, this place is like a museum,” breathed Lindsay, surveying the ancient furnishings from her perch on the sofa. “There’s a fortune in antiques in this room alone.”
“No kidding,” whispered Carl, gawking at the venerable nineteenth-century cabinetwork, the porcelain vases decorated with gold butterflies and enamel flowers, the woolen draperies that swept in elegant rolls from the lofty ceiling to the floor. “The Dawkinses never had anything like this. But then again, they had kids, and I’m told that antiques and kids don’t mix.”
“How long did your friends live here?”
Carl thought a moment, leaning back on the sofa and pursing his lips. “Renzy’s parents were here about twenty-six years. Moved in when Renzy was in the first grade, as I recall. I can’t remember exactly when Renzy moved out, but it must’ve been when he went off to college. His sister, Diana, was a year younger, and she stayed on, right up until Ted and Alita—” He broke off, clearly reluctant to go on.
“Until Ted and Alita what?”
Carl fidgeted in his seat, planted an ankle on a knee, and toyed with the laces of his deck shoes. “They committed suicide,” he said with a little grimace, as though the words tasted bad. “Right here in this house, in fact. There’s another parlor in the back, with a little alcove off to one side. They called it the ‘prayer corner,’ because it had stained-glass windows. That’s where Renzy found them—both dead—and Diana was in one of the upstairs bedrooms, having something like a nervous breakdown. The story was that they ate rat poison or something. There was no suicide note, no evidence of any emotional turmoil, absolutely nothing that gave any clue about why they did it. Renzy’d been off sailing his yacht somewhere, and he was just dropping in to—”
“You’re making this up,” gasped Lindsay. Her face had whitened a shade, and her blue eyes were huge behind her hom-rims. “Tell me you’re making it up.”
“I wish I were,” said Carl, staring at his shoelaces. “It doesn’t feel good to talk about it right now, believe me. It just seems so senseless.” He ran his tongue over his drying lips. “At the funeral, Renzy vowed never to set foot in this house again. As far as I know, he never did, and I suspect the place was vacant until Dr. Craslowe moved in. Maybe that explains why the grounds are in such bad shape. As for Diana, she never really recovered. The doctors all expected her to get better, but she never did. Last I heard, she was still in a private mental hospital up near Port Angeles.”
Mrs. Ianthe Pauling appeared from the hall, her hands folded officiously over her stomach. “Dr. Craslowe will see you now,” she said, stepping backward to indicate the way.
She led them down a long corridor hung with faded seventeenth-century landscapes to the rear parlor that Carl had mentioned a moment ago, the room where the Dawkinses had ended their lives by eating rat poison. On the outer wall of the room stood a massive stone fireplace with a mantel that matched the dark walnut wainscoting. A tentative fire cast dancing shadows. Heavy drapes covered the windows, effectively denying the daylight. Above the mantel hung a bank of framed diplomas. A luxuriant Persian carpet covered all but a narrow perimeter of parquet floor, which, Carl remembered, had been a source of special pride to Renzy’s father, who never passed up a chance to remind guests that the inlaid cherry, oak, and birch had been imported from South America (“You just don’t see this kind of craftsmanship anymore,”he had often said with a satisfied smile). A pair of electric Tiffany lamps sat at opposite ends of a stately ebony table that in another century could have graced the dining hall of an Elizabethan castle, but which now served as a desk. Splayed here and there on its surface were thick, leather-bound books, presumably taken from the vast collection that crammed the shelves on the walls. Brooding, heavy-limbed furniture sat in clusters throughout the room, and in the corners stood porphyry busts of long-dead scholars, their faces somber under a thin layer of dust.
In the tiny alcove that the Dawkinses had called their “prayer corner” stood Dr. Hadrian Craslowe, hands clasped behind his back, his wispy white hair vaguely tinted by the feeble afternoon light that filtered through the stained-glass windows overhead. He stepped smoothly out of the alcove and smiled, his ancient dentures gleaming. He wore steel-rimmed glasses that exaggerated his watery gray eyes and a formless suit of dark tweed that gave no hint of the shape of the body inside it. With his large head slightly cocked, he reminded Carl of a kindly English lord who had graciously granted an audience to his tenants.
“Miss Moreland, Mr. Trosper, I’m Hadrian Craslowe. Won’t you please sit down?” His voice flowed like the venerable Thames, deep and ageless and unhurried.
Since he offered no handshake, Lindsay and Carl smiled their hellos and obediently took their seats in a pair of brocaded armchairs that hunkered before the great table. The doctor settled into a massive black leather chair on the opposite side and leaned forward until his chest touched the wood, keeping his hands out of sight below the edge.
He nodded to his assistant, who waited wraithlike in the shadow of the doorway. “That will be all, Mrs. Pauling, thank you.” She slipped softly away, closing the double doors behind her.
“Before we begin, allow me to offer my sincere condolences on the passing of Mrs. Trosper,” he said in his sober, aristocratic English. “She was a remarkable woman, strong and loving. Her perseverance in seeking help for her son was truly inspiring. She was also an accomplished artist, I’m told.”
“She loved all kinds of art,” said Lindsay. “And all kinds of people, too.” She cast a quick, sidelong look at Carl, one he disliked. “She’ll be missed by all of us.”
“Yes, of course she will, and not the least by Jeremy, I should think.”
“As you well know, Dr. Craslowe, Jeremy is the reason we’re here,” said Carl, using the deferential tone he customarily reserved for senators and cabinet officials back in Washington, D.C. “Since he’ll be living with me, I thought it wise to consult you about the care he’ll need. I haven’t been a hands-on father for a long time, and I need all the advice I can get.
Craslowe’s craggy face produced a smile. “Naturally, I’ll be happy to advise you in any way I can, Mr. Trosper.”
“We also want to thank you,” said Lindsay, “for all you’ve done. Jeremy’s recovery has been a miracle, and I can’t tell you how grateful we are.”
Craslowe’s smile broadened almost imperceptibly. “To be called a miracle worker is really very seductive, Miss Moreland, but it is a title I cannot claim. Jeremy’s recovery is attributable to science, and there’s nothing miraculous about it. Were this the fifteenth century and not the twentieth,
I could perhaps get away with claiming to have worked a miracle”—he actually chuckled—“at the risk of being burned at the stake, of course.”
“I don’t know whether Lorna told you, but we took him to something like fifty doctors,” said Carl, “and not one of them could even tell us what was wrong. We spent a fortune on clinical tests, not to mention airline tickets and hotel rooms, but it was all hopeless. We—”
“Yes, yes,” interrupted the doctor, “Lorna described your ordeal in some detail, and I must agree that it was tragic, all the more so because it was needless.” He leaned back in the huge chair, wholly serious now, looking very old and wise. “Had you known of our work in Europe, or if someone had referred you to the Zurich Mental Health Institute in Switzerland where I was practicing, you would have been spared considerable suffering, I daresay. We could have effected Jeremy’s recovery much sooner.”
“I know very little about psychology,” said Lindsay, “and I’m not sure I’d even understand an explanation of how you did it, but I’m curious about why you succeeded when so many other doctors failed.”
“I merely opened the right door, Miss Moreland. In deference to my copractitioners, I had the advantage of knowing which door to look for, owing to my considerable experience in such matters. You see, Jeremy’s case is not totally unique—in fact, it is rather more common than most would expect. Why, scarcely two years ago in Switzerland, I attended a young German man who had much in common with Jeremy.
“He was nineteen years old and completely dependent on his family. He had never spoken a coherent word, never laughed or smiled, nor so much as shown recognition of a family member. He could neither dress himself nor attend to his sanitary needs, and at any given moment he would shriek meaninglessly at the top of his lungs, flailing his arms and feet, breaking furniture and such, frightening everyone around him. Like you and your wife, Mr. Trosper, his parents had consulted dozens of physicians and therapists, only to hear that the case was utterly hopeless. Most recommended institutionalization, of course.” Carl felt a little stab of guilt. Thank God Lorna had resisted his arguments for sending Jeremy to an institution. He listened with his head lowered as Craslowe went on.