F Paul Wilson - Secret History 02 (52 page)

           
Rob nearly fell into the seat beside
her. Kara could barely speak.

           
"But I don't want it! I don't
want anything of his!"

           
"You may refuse it, of course,
but I would think about that. There will be a formal probate of the will, but
he left specific instructions that immediately after he was pronounced dead,
these keys were to be delivered to the heir he had named." He cleared his
throat. "We had some difficulty reaching you, otherwise you would have had
them sooner."

           
"When did he name Kara his
heir?" Rob asked.

           
"Last week. I will be in touch
with you again soon, Miss Wade, under more formal circumstances, I hope.

           
However, it was imperative that this
particular term of his will be carried out as written. Good day."

           
Kara didn't show him or Miss Capwell
out. She sat with Rob on Ellen's couch and stared at the envelope in her hand.
Finally, Rob spoke.

           
"I don't care if you keep it or
not, Kara, but I've got to see the inside of that house. I've
got
to."

           
Kara looked at him, unsure of what
to do. Then she realized that she wanted to see it, too.

           
"Let's go."

           
"The lights are on," Kara
said as they stood before Gates' house.

           
It was a tall, narrow Victorian row
house of dark brown stone, looming behind a wrought iron fence. Each floor had
its own large bay window. A tiny patch of winter-browned lawn sat on either
side of the short slate walk that led to the front steps.

           
"They've been on since Monday
night," said Rob close by her side. "Let's go. I've got to be back at
the precinct soon."

           
He opened the low iron gate and
walked ahead of her. Kara held back. Something within her—the same something
that had rejoiced with the news of Dr. Gates' death—was afraid and was trying
to hold her back. She overcame it and followed Rob up the steps to the front
door.

           
There were two front doors. The
outer one was unlocked. As she stood in the vestibule with Rob, Kara tried to
peek through the designs in the frosted glass of the inner door but couldn't
see much.

           
"Why don't I go first,"
Rob said as she turned the key in the lock.

           
"I can take care of
myself," she said.

           
"I'm sure you can, but since
we're dealing with a guy who qualifies as the Daffy Duck of the New York State
Medical Society, maybe I should just check the place out to make sure he
doesn't have any crazies living with him."

           
"You're thinking of that padded
cell in his office?"

           
"That, and some other
things."

           
"All right," Kara said,
suddenly glad Rob was along. "Be my guest."

           
She stepped into the front hall
behind him. On her right was the common wall Dr. Gates shared with the house
next door. A long narrow staircase ran up along that wall. An ornate
chandelier, festooned with heavy red glass grapes, hung overhead. Far to the
rear, daylight filtered in through the tall windows overlooking the rear
courtyard.

           
Just inside the front door on the
left wall of the foyer was an alarm panel. A red light glowed at the top of the
panel. The numbers
1-7-4-2-3
were
written on a tag tied to the key ring. Kara punched them in and the light
turned to green.

           
"We're in."

           
"Let me check the basement
first," Rob said.

           
He stepped down the hall to a door
that opened into the space under the stairs and went below.

           
As Kara watch him go, she remembered
that incident in Philadelphia a few years ago where they found three women
chained in the basement of someone's house. She shuddered with revulsion.

           
She spun and stared the length of
the foyer. For a moment she had thought someone was there. The foyer was empty.
But she couldn't escape the feeling that she wasn't alone.

           
Be
careful, Rob.

           
To distract herself, she began to
look around.

           
Rob entered the basement cautiously,
wishing at first for a flashlight. But when he flipped the switch he found he
didn't need one. There were plenty of incandescent bulbs hanging among the
pipes in the exposed ceiling.

           
The basement was not quite what he
had expected. There were the usual crates of odds and ends, and a furnace and a
water heater at the rear. But it was smaller than he had anticipated. And it
was clean, warm, and dry—heated and dehumidified. There was green industrial
grade carpet on the floor and relatively new oak planking on the walls. Part of
the area appeared to have been walled off but there was no access to the space.

           
He sniffed the air. There was a sour
smell. Maybe Gates was having some trouble with his sewer line. Maybe it was
time to call Roto-rooter.

           
One thing was sure at least: Nobody
was hiding down here.

           
Kara explored the first floor. All
the ceilings seemed at least fifteen feet high. She peeked into the front room.
It was a small study with curtains drawn across the bay window. A computer
terminal sat on a desk. The next room was a bathroom with ornate tiles and an
old fashioned paw-footed tub. Next came the kitchen and pantries. She opened a
few of the cabinets. One of them was stocked with jars of baby food.

           
She was standing there and staring
at the rows of Gerber Junior Meals, trying to imagine what use Dr. Gates could
possibly have for them, when she felt suddenly weak.
Hungry… so hungry
. Her knees wobbled as the room whirled about her
once, then stopped. Then she was fine.

           
What had caused that? And then she
remembered that in the turmoil of Rob's visit and Mr. Wheatley's bombshell
about inheriting this house, she hadn't got around to eating lunch.

           
Promising to grab a bite soon, she
moved on to the rear of the house which was taken up entirely by a large dining
room with a huge marble fireplace.

           
She heard Rob on the stairs and
hurried back to the foyer.

           
"All clear," he said.
"On the small side, but it's
clean
.
Looks like whoever does the rest of the house vacuums and dusts the basement as
well. Never seen a clean basement before."

           
"That kind of goes with the
rest of the place. It's immaculate. But he looked like the fastidious sort,
didn't he."

           
Rob was rubbing his jaw, looking at
the gleaming oak paneling running around the foyer.

           
"Yeah. Real fastidious. But
something's up. Got to be. Why would he leave you his house?"

           
Kara only shrugged. She couldn't
answer that question. At least not yet.

           
Rob said, "Let's give the rest
of the place the onceover and then get out of here."

           
The second floor had a bedroom in
the bay-windowed front section, but the rest of the level was one huge library.
Bookshelves ran from floor to ceiling around the entire open space. Two ladders
on rollers stood ready to give access to the top shelves.

           
"I've never seen this many
books outside of a public library," Rob said.

           
"They look old and rare. I
don't know much about book collecting, but I'll bet he's got some choice first
editions here."

           
She pulled out a copy of
Huckleberry Finn
. The book was dated
1884. Suddenly it slipped from her fingers. For an instant her hand felt numb,
tingling, as if recovering from a novacaine injection, and then.it was fine
again.

           
"Oops!" she said and
replaced the book on its shelf. She wondered if her blood sugar was low.

           
"So much for the second
floor," Rob said, heading for the stairs. "Now for three. The Magical
Mystery Tour continues."

           
The third floor had been opened up
into one huge room. The windows at each end were hung with heavy draperies and
the walls were covered with an assortment of rugs and hangings. Plush carpet
hid the floor. A grand piano dominated the rear end of the room; the front
section was taken up by an eight-foot high projection screen set up before the
draped bay window. It was flanked by racks of electronic equipment arrayed in
two arcs. Along the side wall were shelves holding thousands of record albums,
tapes, and CDs. A television projection unit was suspended from the ceiling,
aimed at the screen. And in the center of it all was a single reclining chair.

           
Kara noticed Rob being drawn to the
front section as if by a magnet.

           
"Look at this stereo rig!"
he said.

           
"That's all it is? Just a
stereo?"

           
Rob laughed. "Right. 'Just a
stereo.' Kara, this is to the average stereo what the space shuttle is to paper
airplanes. He's got a turntable that plays both sides of a record,
reel-to-reel, cassette, and even eight track tape players, a ten-disk CD
player, plus for video he's got VHS, Beta, and videodisk." Rob was like a
little boy in a toy store at Christmas. He approached one of the coffin-sized,
fabric-covered boxes situated around the room. "Look at these
surround-sound speakers! Christ! There's enough wattage here to blow the roof
off!"

           
"I'm surprised his neighbors
haven't had the police on him."

           
"That's what I think all these
drapes and wall hangings are for. They're like baffles. They keep the sound
from bouncing off the walls as well as vibrating through. He's fixed himself a
miniature concert hall here."

           
Kara looked through the titles of
some of the albums.