Return of the Wolf Man (11 page)

“Fine,” Pratt continued. “Second, you can get a court order to force us to take the rest of the door down, which will take days if not weeks—”

“The assessment must be done within seven days of death,” Porterhouse said, “or the maximum allowable tax is levied.”

“Levy it,” Caroline dared.

“He won’t,” Pratt said. “Because then the Florida Probate Commission will have to review the case and I’ll argue that we made a reasonable effort to accommodate Mr. Porterhouse. If we win, they get the minimum allowable tax.”

“You call this effort sincere?” squawked the assessor. “An opening the size of a doggie door?”

“If the other shoe fits . . .” Banning said as he edged past Caroline.

“Mr. Porterhouse,” Pratt said, “we cut a hole suitable for your size if not your attire, for which I’m truly sorry, and have placed no time restrictions on your examination. We stand here ready to help in any way we can. I would say that that constitutes a sincere effort. Which leaves us with option number three. You can stop complaining, go in there now, and get this damn thing
over
with.”

Porterhouse stood still, his mouth drawn tight, his eyes furious little squints. After a long moment, he turned and stalked over to the two-foot-tall by three-foot-wide opening. “I don’t appreciate being bullied,” he said. “A formal complaint will be filed against the executor of the estate.”

“And we don’t appreciate being threatened,” Pratt replied. “A countercomplaint will be waiting.”

Porterhouse huffed once, then again. Then he looked at Caroline. “In deference to the grieving niece, I’ll go.”

“Thank you,” Caroline said.

Porterhouse removed a tape measure from his blazer pocket. Then he unshouldered his camera case, which hung from a long, leather strap. Finally, he slipped the jacket off, laid it carefully across the chair behind the desk, and squatted outside the opening. He flicked on the flashlight, shined it in, and poked his head through. He quickly withdrew it.

“Lord!” he, said.

“What’s wrong?” Caroline asked.

“It smells foul down there.”

“I can imagine,” Banning said. “It was pretty mildewy when I was down there.”

Pratt crouched beside the tax man. “If you’ll agree that the basement’s between five and seven percent of the entire area of the house, as I’ve calculated, we can close it up and skip the smells.”

“That is
not
the way to do a proper assessment,” Porterhouse said.

“Suit yourself,” Pratt replied, rising. “We’ll see you later.”

Frowning, Porterhouse pushed his camera through the opening, lowered himself to his knees, and squeezed in. He had to angle his shoulders to get his chest through. The sides of his belt caught on jagged pieces of brick. He had to jiggle to free himself.

“Call if you need anything,” Pratt said.

“A larger opening,” Porterhouse said as he struggled through.

“Except that,” Pratt said. As Porterhouse vanished, Pratt turned to Caroline. “I’m sorry you had to go through all of this.”

“It’s all right,” she said. “I actually feel kind of bad for him.”

“Save it,” Pratt advised. “People who only see black and white make their own problems. There’s got to be give-and-take.”

“I suppose so,” Caroline said.

She stepped aside so Banning could lay a blanket on the old tiles. A moment later he pulled in a dolly loaded with fresh bricks. As she stepped back into the doorway Caroline saw that the full moon had risen high and proud over the mainland. She walked outside and smelled the salt air, felt the cool, refreshing breeze. Pratt followed her and they both stared up.

“It’s funny how my great-aunt saw the moon and thought of vampires and werewolves,” she said.

“Only a full moon for werewolves,” Pratt pointed out. “How did Ms. Raymond put it in
The Wails of Wales?
‘The force that pulls man from God as irrevocably as it pulls the tides from the shore.’ ”

Caroline smiled. “It’s strange. Whenever
I
look at the moon I feel a real sense of tranquility.”

“So do I,” said Pratt. “In another of Ms. Raymond’s werewolf stories—‘Destiny,’ I think it was—she described the moon as the eye of God looking down on us, judging us. She said that it blinked over the course of a month, and only the damned dared to work their evil when the eye was open. I always liked that image of the moon as the eye of God watching over us, protecting us.”

“I wish I could believe that.”

“Why can’t you? Too intangible for a woman of science?”

“Not at all,” she said. “I’ve seen deep depression cause illness and I’ve seen willpower heal the sick. That’s pretty intangible.”

“Touché,” Pratt said.

“I guess I just don’t believe there’s any kind of benevolent force behind existence. If there were, we’d be doing better—”

“Pratt!” Banning yelled.

“What’s wrong?”

“Porterhouse says he’s found something.”

Pratt turned and ran into the foyer. Caroline followed him. She could hear the tax assessor’s voice coming from deep inside the basement.

“What?” Pratt asked.

“Hold on!” Banning said. He was leaning close to the opening, listening. “Porterhouse says it looks like there’s a revolving door of some kind.”

“A what?”

“Shhhh!” Banning said. He was still listening. “A door, except it’s made of stone. He says it’s open a crack.”

Pratt looked at Caroline and motioned her away from the opening. “Your great-aunt told me there were just stairs and torches down there and water from the old ocean-access,” he whispered. “She didn’t mention anything else.”

“I wonder if she even knew,” Caroline said.

“Maybe not.” Pratt shook his head. “But we certainly don’t need this.”

“Why?”

“Because if there’s a room back there,” Pratt said, “one that’s been neglected for half a century, we may have building codes and other regulations to deal with.” Pratt walked toward the opening. “Banning, tell Porterhouse not to touch it. I’m coming down.”

Banning did as Pratt told him. “He says that that’s where the smell is coming from. He says it’s seriously nasty.”

“Great,” Pratt said. “Just great.”

As he neared the opening, Caroline felt another jolt. Only this time it wasn’t the kick of the jackhammer. It was something she hadn’t felt here until this moment.

It was fear.

FIVE

W
alking slowly, Caroline followed Henry Pratt back to the basement door. She felt a chill and folded her arms across her chest as she stood to the right of the opening. From here she could smell what Porterhouse had been complaining about. It reminded Caroline of when she was a little girl and found a discarded suitcase in a field. She opened it and found a dead cat along with its rotting litter. The animal had crawled inside to have the kittens and then couldn’t get out. Caroline was literally knocked off her feet by the smell.

The smell here was almost as bad, and Caroline was still outside the basement. She watched as the attorney squeezed in.

She was annoyed by this latest turn in the desecration of her great-aunt’s home. Annoyed yet also intrigued. Did her great-aunt know about the hidden room? And if so, why did she tell no one about it?

She also felt bad for Henry Pratt. She believed what he’d said, that this intrusion into the basement bothered him as much as it did her. She empathized with the tall attorney as he struggled through the opening, especially when it seemed as if his broad hips weren’t going to make it through. Pratt had to drop to his belly, then turn on his side and wriggle in, like a worm.

On top of everything else, the hidden room vindicated the fussy Mr. Porterhouse. That had to smart.

“Watch the steps,” Porterhouse said, his voice echoing through the chamber. “They’re badly rotted.”

“Thanks,” Pratt said. “I noticed. I don’t know what smells worse—these steps or whatever’s down there.”

“Whatever’s down here,” Porterhouse said. “Trust me.”

Banning turned to Caroline. “I kin fix those steps t’morrow. Matter of fact, if ya want, we can leave this whole thing till tomorrow.”

“I’d rather not,” Caroline said. “Hopefully, no one will be using the stairs after tonight.”

Banning looked anxiously into the young woman’s eyes.

“I’d really like to close this up as soon as Mr. Porterhouse and Mr. Pratt are finished,” Caroline said. “Would you mind waiting just a little longer?”

Banning’s eyes shifted to the front door. “It’s gettin’ kinda late. And how d’ya know they won’t find somethin’ behind that door what needs to be hauled up. Like a sailor’s chest or an old organ.” He looked at her and grinned nervously. “The playing kind, I mean.”

“I know,” she smiled.

“I’m not equipped t’do that.”

“I appreciate your patience, Mr. Banning, and I’ll be happy to pay you any overtime—”

“It ain’t the money, Dr. Cooke. My house an’ my truck’re paid for. But it’s like I been tellin’ ya. I know you love this place an’ all but some of us feel—well, we feel different about it, is all.”

“Tell me, Mr. Banning,” Caroline said. “What is it exactly that you’re worried about? My great-aunt’s garlic? The crosses?”

“That’s part of it.”

“But there are rational explanations for those things. Maybe she used them for inspiration. Maybe they helped her understand her characters better.”

“Some people believe she understood ’em
too
well,” Banning said. “Some people believe that she had some kinda connection with dead things.”

“Connection?”

“Yeah. You know.”

“I’m sorry but I don’t.”

Banning rolled his large eyes. It was easy to see the boy in the man just then. “Some people believe that your great-aunt once had run-ins with the dead. The living dead. That they once lived on this island—in this castle.”

“I see.”

“Lookit, don’t take my word for it, Dr. Cooke. Check out the old newspaper accounts, summer of nineteen forty-eight. When those two shipping clerks, Chick Young and Wilbur Grey, came back to the mainland after their night here, they swore to anyone who would listen, swore to God Almighty Himself, that this was an island of monsters. They said they’d fought with Count Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster, and the Wolf Man.”

“It sounds as if those men were agitated,” Caroline said.

“Folks say they was crazy.”

“I’ll bet,” Caroline said. “And stress can produce a particular mind-set. It can transform trees into claws, shadows into cloaks, or men into monsters. Mr. Pratt told me that you had a serial killer in LaMirada at about the same time and that some people were convinced he was a monster too.”

“The Beast of LaMirada
was
a monster—”

“Or maybe it was a wild man who only looked like a monster,” Caroline replied evenly. “And maybe those two shipping clerks thought they encountered a Wolf Man and Count Dracula.”

“Or maybe they really
did,”
Banning said. He was growing visibly upset. “Why is everyone so goldarn sure about these things? I see it on TV all the time, on these investigation shows! They say yeah, there
may
be a Bigfoot or an Abominable Snowman. Absolutely, there
could
be a Loch Ness Monster. Okay, there
might
be flyin’ saucers with Pillsbury Doughboy people inside.”

“They’ll say anything to get ratings.”

“But I seen the photographs! They have experts on who say they aren’t fakes! So who’s to say hell no, there ain’t no Yeti or space aliens? Who’s to say there ain’t no such thing as a vampire named Count Dracula or a werewolf called the Beast of LaMirada or an eight-foot-tall monster made from dead bodies?”

Caroline was sorry she’d started this. She took one of Banning’s hands between hers but he snatched it back.

“Don’t treat me like I’m nuts myself,” the mason huffed.

“Mr. Banning, calm down,” Caroline said. “I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“People ain’t as smart as they think, Dr. Cooke. Shakespeare said there’s more things in heaven and earth than people dream about, and I believe they’re also under the earth in dark basements.”

“I understand,” she said. “I truly do.”

Banning looked at his watch. He used a longish nail to scrape dried mortar from the crystal. “I’m real sorry, Dr. Cooke, but they got ten minutes in there. If I ain’t slappin’ mortar on brick by then—”

“Caroline!”
Pratt shouted.

Banning froze like a stalked deer. “Oh Jesus,” he moaned.

Caroline crouched by the opening. “Yes, Mr. Pratt?”

“Caroline, I’m on a landing halfway down the steps,” he said. “Mr. Porterhouse is right. There’s some kind of door here. It’s slightly ajar, though not enough so that we can see inside. We’re going to try and open it a little more. It’s made out of stone and it looks like it swivels around the center.”

“Is that going to be a problem?”

“I don’t know,” Pratt said. “You can almost taste the rust and mildew on the door but that’s definitely where the smell’s coming from. Hold on. We’re going to give the door a little nudge.”

“Be careful!” she said.

“I will.”

“Of the house, I mean,” she added playfully.