by P. N. Elrod
I read the thing again to be sure I’d gotten it right. “Depends. It’s about Maureen.” I passed over the flimsy. His lean face showed concern as he read:
FUNERAL ON 28TH. ADVISE ARRIVAL TIME IF ATTENDING. BARRETT
“Dear God. He found her then,” my friend murmured, more to himself than me. Escott didn’t ask the obvious question right away, waiting a whole ten seconds so I could think things over. “Will you go?”
“Guess I have to.” That sounded cold. “I mean, I don’t want to, but I should.” That was even worse. “It’s been two years . . . and another five before them. I don’t want to go through that again.”
“Of course not. You’ve had your mourning. I expect Barrett has, too.”
I’d not considered how it might be for him.
“But perhaps he would welcome some simple company.”
Or he’d figured out a few things since my last visit in ’36 and wanted to have a word. But were that the case, Barrett would just turn up on the doorstep and punch my ticket.
“I’ll go pay my respects.”
There, a good comfortable phrase, somber and appropriate. It put a safe distance between myself and old heartbreak. Seven years late I would stand by a graveside, say a prayer, and lay flowers down. Seven years late, but better than never knowing what had happened to her.
I owed everything to Maureen Dumont. Everything. Her dark gift had saved me a dozen times over.
Paying respects wasn’t enough, but nothing else was left.
* * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
Bobbi Smythe, my girlfriend, proved remarkably understanding about my attending the funeral of the only other woman I’d ever loved. I broke the news in her dressing room after her last set for the night, showing the telegram.
Part of me (there was a craven, petty coward tucked away in one of the darker corners of my skull) hoped Bobbi would get the jealous sulks and thus provide a reason to stay home. Instead, she offered to drive me to the station. I said I’d take a cab.
“And of course Charles and I will look after the club,” she said reassuringly, smearing cold cream on her stage makeup and wiping it off with tissues.
Yeah, yeah, I knew that, but was glad she couldn’t see my reflection in the mirror. I had a long face on. I could feel it.
“Take whatever time you need. You don’t worry about anything here.”
I knew that, too.
“Unless you want one of us along?”
“I’ll be fine.”
Company on the trip would have been good, but not for the funeral itself. This was something out of my past I had to settle for myself and then close the door. Instinct told me I had to do that one alone.
“If you’re sure?”
“Yeah, baby. I’m sure.” I sat and watched her ritual of putting on all-new makeup. She was drop dead gorgeous without it, but I kept that to myself. She liked her warpaint, and I liked watching her primp. It took my mind off what was to come on Long Island.
“You’re the best, you know that?” I said.
She paused and glanced my way. Smiling. Oh, yeah. She knew it.
* * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
Travel is a little more complicated when you’re a vampire, but not impossible.
That’s right, vampire: bloodsucking, sleep-through-the-day Bela Lugosi stuff, only I don’t wear a tuxedo if I can help it, and I don’t own an opera cape.
Forget about bats and hypnosis, too. The former is myth, the latter a talent that’s been burned out of me. I can vanish if I need to—and that’s handy.
Especially when traveling.
To get to Long Island, I booked my light-proofed traveling trunk on the Twentieth Century Limited and shipped myself east. The easy part was wrestling the big, clumsy box out of the cab into the LaSalle Street Station and making sure it got on the right train. Then I had to give up being solid, slip unseen into the portable sanctuary that held my home earth, spare clothes, and a few magazines. After that, the hard part: waiting and trusting others to see to it that I reached my destination. After so much time of supervising every detail of running my club, I was too used to being in charge.
Not wanting to think about what awaited on Long Island, I wrestled out a pocket flashlight—a necessity when no other ambient light was available—and kept myself entertained with the adventures of The Shadow until the sun rose.
When I woke the next night, the world outside my trunk no longer swayed along rails and had gone silent. I cautiously sieved out, trying to get a sense of the surroundings, but there wasn’t anything within easy reach. A faint wind teased at my invisible self; I was outdoors, but where? It wasn’t the Grand Central Terminal . . . probably the local station closest to Barrett’s home, and how busy could that be at sunset?
I took a chance and went solid, taking a deep breath of what I assumed was chilly Long Island air, flushing the stale stuff from my usually dormant lungs.
Not a train platform, but just as big, I abruptly recognized the grand porte cochère of the Francher mansion. Jonathan Barrett, Esquire, lived here with his lady friend, Emily Francher, who was richer than Midas and too reclusive for my taste. She had her reasons, I guess. What the hell, they were happy, and where they hung their hats was none of my business.
Per instructions sent by Escott, Barrett must have arranged for someone to deliver my trunk to the estate. It had been sitting out all day, but was safe enough. This was a secluded property with a locked gate and a gatekeeper in residence. Still, I wondered why I’d not been trucked indoors.
I stretched out the kinks, not that I had any, only my clothes were creased. I was confident some Francher servant might be talked into ironing them into shape.
My memory of the last visit was clear, but not where it concerned the surrounding landscape. The road that led toward the front gate was . . . over there, lots of trees, bare for winter except for stretches of evergreens that hid the place from its neighbors. Somewhere behind the house to the north the land sloped toward the Sound. I took a second breath, this time noting the fresh tang of the sea in the chill.
Along the road to the gate was a large, unnaturally flat patch of ground. That had been where the original Francher house stood until it had burned down, taking Emily Francher’s mother with it. The ruins had been broken up and carted away, and what was left they pushed into the cellar, the gaps filled with dirt and bulldozed smooth.
Maureen’s remains had rested there for nearly seven years, her grave unmarked and unknown except by her clever, precocious murderer. If Escott and I hadn’t blundered in and upset things maybe a harmless cabby named John Henry Banks would still be driving his hack, and Emily Francher would still be getting around during the day.
There was no way of knowing. When you start looking into people’s secrets either nothing happens or all hell breaks loose. There’s usually no middle ground when murder is involved.
Maureen’s killer might well have taken more lives without our interference. I’d stopped her, and I’d not been thinking of future victims at the time. That night I allowed myself to be judge, jury, and executioner. Not something I was proud of, and it bothered me when I let it. Mostly I told myself that there’d been no other solution. It wasn’t the kind of case you could take to court: no evidence, no witnesses, no conviction, no justice.
Of course, coming here brought back the helpless anger I’d felt, but I’d known that would happen. Nothing for it but to take it on the chin and return home as soon as I could.
The flat patch on the land was gone—replaced by a big black pit. Piles of raw earth lay nearby with shards of burned wood sticking out like bones from a ravaged carcass. A diesel shovel, crane, and other heavy construction equipment were gathered around the hole like graveside mourners.
Not knowing where Maureen’s body had been in the ruins, Barrett had to excavate the whole thing. That could not have been easy. I was glad he’d found her, but God knows how tough it must have been
for him. I don’t think I’d have been able to do it.
Behind me came the sound of a latch clicking, and I turned just as the front door swung wide.
Barrett looked at me; I looked back. It was a mutual sizing up. I could figure he was also comparing the man before him to the one in his memory and correcting the inevitable shifts that happen with the passage of time. I recalled him as being much shorter, but we were almost the same height. He hadn’t aged of course; like me, he seemed to be in his twenties, but there was a sad weariness in the set of his shoulders that added years to his manner.
He wore mud-smeared dark trousers, a wrinkled shirt, and ratty old carpet slippers on bare feet. Soon as the sun was down he’d have gotten right out of bed to see if his guest had arrived and had apparently slept in those clothes. Most noticeably, his hair hadn’t been cut in several months, hanging loose and ragged around his face, and he’d not shaved in at least a week. Last time he’d been neat as a cat and, I thought, just as smug. But he’d been working hard at a heartbreaking task, little wonder he’d gone downhill. This struck me as overdoing it, though.
He put his hand out. “Hello, Fleming.”
I returned the courtesy, keeping it brief. “Barrett.”
“Please, come in.” He stood back, allowing me to pass, though the doorway was so wide it wasn’t necessary.
As no one else was around for the job, I picked my trunk up. Without me inside it was light, just awkward. I took care not to bang it into anything, including my host.
“Put it anywhere,” he said.
I did that and looked around. The enormous entry hall was different. There was now carpeting on the sweeping stairs. Emily Francher had been violently pushed down those steps, the fall killing her, couldn’t blame her for wanting a change. If it’d been me I’d have moved out altogether.
The Impressionist paintings remained in the hall, but the series of huge oil paintings depicting life before the French revolution were gone. The upper landing was less lively without them. “Redecorating?” I asked, nodding at the blank walls.
“Somewhat. Donated that lot to a museum.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“I was tired of looking at them. Anyway, they were forgeries done in the 1850s. The museum knows it, which for some strange reason makes them a more interesting display.”
His speech pattern was all his own, a British accent but not quite. If I’d not gotten used to hearing Escott all the time I’d have taken Barrett for an Englishman. He’d been born on Long Island, though, sometime in the mid-seventeen hundreds.
He shut the door and set the latch. The hall got darker. The curtains were drawn, appropriate for a house in mourning. He flicked a switch, and an overhead pushed back the shadows. The artificial light made him look more haggard. His eyes were usually a clear, intense blue, like the hot part of a candle flame, but were now faded and tired. “This way, if you would.”
I followed him across the entry to a parlor or sitting room or whatever it was. Big houses rattle me; they have too many doors and not enough names for the spaces behind them. There is never a simple living room, one to a customer, but two or three scattered around, and not one with a single comfortable chair.
Barrett clicked on a table lamp. The twenty-five watt bulb was good enough lighting for my sensitive eyes, but the corners remained stubbornly gloomy. Since books crowded the shelves on two walls I decided to risk calling this place a library, though odds favored there was another, bigger one lurking elsewhere in the joint.
“Make yourself at home, I’ll get some refreshment,” he said.
I knew what that would be, but the “getting” part stumped me. He kept horses, both for riding and to provide a steady, ongoing supply of fresh blood. Was he going to bring one in the house for the convenience of his guest?
He excused himself and went off. I wanted to get some questions out of the way, but he’d been raised in a time where civilized customs were followed come hell or high water. A faint echo of such old-time courtesies remained in some homes. My mother couldn’t imagine having guests over without first making sure they each had a cup of coffee and a plate of cookies at hand.
I wandered and read book titles. A few I recognized, but the rest were well before my time. The once important issues in the nonfiction works were either stale with age or about the kind of problem that’s never resolved. I opened a few to check printing dates, finding none more recent than 1890. Barrett didn’t look it, but the man was old.
Was this my future? If I got to be his age would I wind up with a house full of irrelevant books gathering dust?
Against expectation I found an overstuffed chair suitable for wallowing and tried to relax in it. The silence of the house pressed down, and I listened hard for any sign of activity. Except for a distant scuffing of slipper-clad feet and the slam of a door—my host going outside—nothing. Where was everybody?
Unpleasant words like mausoleum and tomb trundled through my brain. I vowed that if I ever got Emily Francher’s kind of wealth I would never inflict such a massive house on myself. This place gave me the creeps, which was saying something.
The chair abruptly ceased to be comfortable and turned into a smothering monster, which was crazy since I don’t have to breathe regularly. I struggled free and went to the room’s one window to pull open the curtain, revealing a long stretch of shaded veranda. It would be a pleasant place to lounge in the summer, but the fair weather furniture was stacked off to the side, some of it covered by a tied down tarp. Another batch was unadorned, though lengths of cut rope from its missing tarp lay on the flagstones like dead snakes.
A few steps down from the shaded area was a swimming pool, drained for the winter. Though bleak with snow and blown-in debris, it didn’t take much to remember young Laura Francher doing laps in that pool, her long blond hair streaming gracefully behind as she swam.
I have to stop doing this to myself.
I resisted letting the curtain drop on the memory and looked beyond the pool, seeking some hint of life on the estate.
The stables and horses weren’t within view, though there was a distant slice of twinkling gray that marked the Sound. I could see myself strolling down there to look at the water when the weather was fine. Not that I didn’t have the same opportunity in Chicago, but Lake Michigan wasn’t Long Island Sound. There’s a difference, and if I put some thought to it I might figure it out, but not tonight.
I now let the curtain fall and checked the room again. No changes had taken place in the last minute; the old books stared back, lonely and bored. I recalled there being a radio in one of the other ground floor rooms, but wasn’t desperate enough to go looking.
With some relief I heard a door bang shut, followed by dish-clattering sounds. What was he doing? Or maybe it was someone else in the house . . . nope, same slippers scuffing, then a rattling and the squeak of rubber on the marble tiles, like a wheelchair. I couldn’t help but think of Maureen’s crazy sister.
This place was really getting to me.
Barrett came in, pushing an innocuous tea trolley.
I hid my relief, replacing it with brief puzzlement. A teapot, cups, and saucers were on the trolley.
At his gesture, I found a chair. He sat opposite and poured from the pot, prim as an old maid on Sunday. He offered me a teacup filled with still-warm blood.
It was the damnedest thing I’d seen in at least a week.
“Is it all right?” he asked.
“Uh . . . ”
“Sorry, I should have inquired first. I assumed you might be hungry after your trip.”
“It’s great, really. I just never thought of having it like this.”
“Never?” He poured a cup for himself. “You prefer to take it on the hoof?”
“Uh. . .lately I buy a quart or two at the butcher and keep it in beer bottles in the ice box.”
“Doesn’t it go bad rather quickly?”
“I drink it off too fast. Saves trips to the Stockyards when
I get busy.” The teacup had painted-on flowers, liberal gold edging, and I felt like an over-ripe sissy sipping from it.
Barrett didn’t seem to have the same problem. The delicate porcelain looked natural in his hands, not at all awkward. He finished half his portion and gave a little sigh of satisfaction.
On that we agreed. The horse blood—I knew the taste—was very good.
“Is Haskell still here?” I asked. He’d been in charge of the horses and had helped me draw blood from them in a hasty effort to save Barrett’s life.
“Yes, but he’s away on holiday along with the other servants. It seemed best to not have them around for the time being. We’re quite on our own.”