Spawn of Hell (17 page)

He gestured. “Be my guest.” David stood in back of Anna, as if hovering protectively. The Chief could have had one of the offices in back if he had so desired, but he had (although he would never admit it} a mild case of claustrophobia. It had never interfered with his work and had not prevented him from going down in that hole in the Forester Building with Harry London, but he saw no need to sit in an enclosed space when it wasn’t even necessary. So he sat at a big desk in the middle of the room, where he could keep an eye on everything, and everyone could keep an eye on him. He was always in and out, in and out all the time anyway, so the position of his desk had never been very important.

“You spoke to my husband yesterday,” Anna continued. “And he—he told me that the details—surrounding Jeffrey’s death were quite unpleasant. I know you’re only trying to spare my feelings, but you see she almost started to cry, “. . . he was my brother. The least I can do it find out, is understand, what happened to him.”

Police Chief Walters put down his sandwich and leaned back in his chair. He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles and exhaled dramatically. “Mrs. Braddon. I fully understand what you’re going through. But to be perfectly honest with you, we don’t
know
what killed your brother. His body was found in a state of deterioration. The coroner determined that he had been dead for at least a week, but that wouldn’t have accounted for all his injuries.”

As if sensing that Anna could use more than a little support, David said, “We heard he was killed falling through a broken floor . . .”

“The fall didn’t kill him, as far as we can tell. The condition of his body was such that a lot of things we might have found out are now impossible to discern. The floor in the storeroom where he worked was broken. We assume he fell through to a sub-basement level, a cavern which appears to run underneath the street for several blocks. His body was found quite a distance away from the area where he fell. Like I said, we still don’t know what killed him.”

“He couldn’t have starved to death?”

“If he had been down there alive for a week, maybe. With a broken leg, unable to yell for help. Hut tin-coroner says he was dead for a week, which meant he probably died the same day he fell through the floor. The coroner’s guess—and it is only a guess—is that he died from certain injuries which he sustained not from the fall, but from something else which he came into contact with in the cavern.”

“What?”

“We don’t know.”

“Animals of some sort?” David suggested.

“That seems to be indicated.” Walters looked quickly at Anna to see how she was taking it.
He was eaten, your brother was eaten.
He felt bile rising from the thought of what he had seen down in that cavern.
Your brother
was
eaten. Your brother is dead.

“What’s being done to find out, to find out what, or who, was responsible for Jeffrey’s death?”

“The coroner is performing certain tests.” He saw the grimace on her face. “I know it’s unpleasant, but it has to be done. That’s why we haven’t released the body yet. I know you’d like to be able to make complete funeral arrangements. You should be able to by the end of the week, if not earlier. While you’re up here you can drive over to Jeffrey’s house, if you’d like, take a look at his belongings. We’ve gone though them, of course. Far as we can tell he didn’t have a lawyer and he never made a will, so I assume the house will belong to you now. And everything in it. You might want to pack it all up and sell the place. But perhaps I’m being a bit premature.”

“I hadn’t even thought of that,” Anna said, smiling tightly. “Is there—is there a lot?”

“I imagine so. Your brother lived here for several years. Things have a way of accumulating. It will probably take more than a day to get things in order.”

“My brother and I lost contact over the years. Did he have any friends, close friends, up here I could talk to?”

“Why don’t you talk to his employer, Harry London? He knew Jeffrey quite well. Was a good friend, too.” He told her where the store and Jeffrey’s house were located. “I believe Harry also had a set of keys to Jeffrey’s place. I’m sure he’ll be glad to give them to you.”

“Thank you.”

“Is there anything else, Miss Braddon? “

“No. You’ll let me know if you find out anything more, won’t you?” She rose from her chair and shook his hand.

“Of course,” said the Chief as he rose, grasped first her hand, then David’s. “I’m very sorry, Mrs. Braddon, I want you to know that. We all liked your brother very much here.”

She thanked him, and walked silently and slowly toward the door, the young man holding onto her shoulder. Chief Walters stared after them long after they had gone out into the street.

Cecelia came over, her hand to her mouth, eyes aglow. “Isn’t she beautiful?” she gushed. “I didn’t dare ask for her autograph. Is she coming back?”

“No,” Walters said, “I don’t think we’ll be seeing her here again.”

Meanwhile the search continued for the four young people who had vanished overnight. By now many neighbors and friends of the youngsters’ families had joined the search parties, spreading out over wider and wider areas of the woods surrounding the base of Hunter’s Mountain. Unfortunately, the searchers focused their efforts almost exclusively on the southeast side, where the cars had been parked, assuming that the kids had stayed in that area. If the men and women combing the woods had all been trained in such endeavors, they might have noticed unmistakable, if subtle signs which would have indicated the direction taken by the four youths. Even the police officers, outnumbered ten to one by the civilians, weren’t experts in the art of tracking. Someone suggested they go over and look in the old caves on the other side of the mountain, but the caves had been passé as meeting and making-out points for teenagers for so many years that no one thought anyone bothered going there anymore. The caves were like a “haunted house” that had been slept in overnight without any harm coming to the participants, demystified due to the lack of ghosts or demons. The dangerous, romantic aspect of the caves, too, had been challenged and found wanting. No one bothered with them now. Rumor had it that they all ended a few yards within the mountains, and had been thoroughly explored without ever revealing any secrets.

“Forget the caves,” someone else muttered. “I still say the kids are somewhere in this area.”

Many of the people in the impromptu search parties were participating only for the sake of the parents. Most of them firmly believed that the kids were playing a joke, or had gone off to another town on impulse, gone on a spree for a lark, without a care for how their parents might react, deliberately leaving the cars behind so that no one would suspect that they’d left the area. Maybe they’d been afraid people might spot the cars on the road as they traveled, so they’d walked or hitchhiked instead. Children never did things that made any sense.

That darn Jack Potter, son of a drunkard, could talk the teenagers into doing anything. That good-looking critter had the kind of matinee-idol features that could easily persuade schoolgirls to engage in unnatural acts. For the parent’s sakes, the townspeople trudged through the woods calling out names, brushing past tree branches and spiny bushes, knowing all the while that the brats would show up before dark with some stupid excuse and a smirk on their foolhardy faces. Few took the search very seriously.

Still, a few of them started up the same path the teens had taken the previous morning. Emily’s mother had been the only parent to see her child actually leave the house, and had finally remembered the backpack strapped to the girl’s shoulders. “I wondered why she took that, instead of the cooler. She never mentioned doing any climbing.”

On the chance that they were still up in the woods, at a campfire somewhere, a few men set out along the mountain trail, stocked up with a few six packs for aid and comfort. They would have cursed and muttered what everyone else was cursing and muttering, only Sam Withers was with them and they had to keep their mouths shut. They feared what would happen when he got his hands on Douglas. If the kid was alive he’d soon wish he wasn’t. Each of them firmly believed they’d find the boy and his pals somewhere on the trail, puffing joints, maybe rollin’ in the buff (most of them would have loved to see the girls in their birthday suits) in the manner of all wayward, rebellious youth. “He’s gonna catch it but good, when his pa gets his hands on him,” they whispered. “Mom’s near worried out of her mind.”

So no one went directly to the caves. It would be a few hours before the men on the trail would reach that particular point.

And down there in the darkness something waited.

The hardware store did a thriving business that day.

Harry London sat in his office and wondered if it had anything to do with Jeffrey Braddon’s death. He concluded that it didn’t. True, since Jeff had had no family in town, this was the only place where people could, in a sense, come and pay their respects, talk to other people who knew him. Some had asked morbid questions, as was to be expected. But most who had known the man simply muttered regrets. Some even went so far as to express sympathy for Paula; her feelings for Jeffrey had not been as secret as Harry had suspected. Everyone seemed to be buying things they would have needed and would have bought even had the tragedy not occurred. That was a small consolation. At least Harry could never say he had profited from someone else’s death.

It would have been an easier day if Paula hadn’t stayed out, although he understood what she was going through. He had sat with her at her house for a good part of the last two evenings, saying little, making her tea, holding her hand. How much he had wanted to comfort her, to tell her: You are
still
loved. But her mind had been on one man only, as was proper, and it might be some time before she could have room in her heart for another. What was that he had thought about never profiting from tragedy?

The trainees Paula had supervised the other day weren’t working out very well, and for the first time in years, Harry found himself working a full shift behind the counter. Normally, he only stepped in for a while on special occasions with certain customers, usually spending his time on the books, huddled over order forms, arguing on the phone, supervising. He had worked long and hard and had earned the right to what basically amounted to semi-retirement. Still, he found that working as a clerk as he had in the old days was somewhat energizing. It was nice to be able to talk to the customers, to trade gossip, to ask how their kids were and how things were going in general.

The minute he saw Roger conferring with them and pointing in his direction, Harry knew that the couple walking towards him weren’t customers, but rather were here to see him exclusively on a special matter; he could tell from the solemn look on their faces. Harry was not a great fan of television, therefore did not recognize Anna Braddon, and the man she was with was just as much a stranger. He didn’t notice any family resemblance between the woman and his late employee until after she had told him who she was.

“Mr. London?” the woman asked. He nodded affirmatively, giving his best professional smile. She said, “I’m Anna Braddon. Jeffrey’s sister. Chief Walters suggested that I see you.” He dropped his smile immediately and told her how sorry he was about her brother’s tragic and pointless death. Anna looked momentarily embarrassed, almost self-conscious. She changed the subject abruptly by introducing David. The two men shook hands warmly.

Harry took the both of them into his private office. “I’m afraid there’s not much I can add to what the Police Chief told you.” He paused, contemplating the effect his words might have, and added, “Did Walters tell you what we found in the Forester Building next door?” He was glad to have something to say, anything to fill up the awkward space surrounding them, the atmosphere of gloom and regret.

“No,” Anna replied. “Does it have to do with Jeffrey’s . . .”

“I’m not sure.” He told them about the hole in the building next door, how odd and inexplicable it had appeared.

“Is anyone looking into it?” David asked.

“Yes, I’m having some men look it over this afternoon. I think whatever happened in that building might be a key to what happened to Jeffrey, so it’s more than worth checking into. And my building here was also affected. Something broke through the floor in that storage room, made it fall apart. It’s a mystery that should be resolved.”

David asked about the Forester Building, what it had last been used for and so on. Harry explained what he could, then added, “I’ve since found out that its former tenant was something called the Barrows Corporation, but that doesn’t tell us much of anything. The Barrows Corporation is a huge conglomerate of various firms and operations. One hand doesn’t know what the other is doing. Chief Walters and I tried to find out what they had used the building for, but got nowhere. No one seems to know, no one has any records. Everyone passes the buck along to somebody else, some other executive or PR officer or division head. It’s all very frustrating.”

“You don’t have any ideas?” Anna asked.

“No. And I could be barking up the wrong tree, altogether. I don’t know for sure that the condition of the Forester Building is related to Jeffrey’s death. The semi-collapse of the building might have been due to structural flaws. I don’t know what to say. It seems to me that if anyone can ever determine the real cause of your brother’s death, it’s the coroner, or whomever he calls in for consultation. I’m afraid that’s not very consoling or satisfying, but like the Chief must have told you, that’s all there is right now.”

Anna rose and thanked him for his time, then remembered to ask for the keys to Jeffrey’s house. “Yes,” Harry said. “We all had a pair of each other’s keys, just in case. I remember he locked himself out one night,” he chuckled, “after an office party.” He handed her a metal key ring. “There you go. The door is easy to open, as I recall.”

Harry sensed that Anna wanted to ask a lot of questions, that she wanted him to tell her
who
her brother had been. But she didn’t come right out and ask, and what was there to
say,
really. “He was a nice guy”? As he watched the two of them leave the hardware store, Harry realized how grateful he was for their sudden appearance. It had barely been a couple of days since Jeffrey’s horrible death, and he had already been growing complacent, going about his business, waiting for Walters and his staff, in their own slow, quiet way, to shed some light upon the mystery. But an employee— more, a
friend
—of his was dead and there was no reason for it, no rational explanation. He could have sought retreat and comfort in his day-to-day concerns, until time passed and Jeffrey’s death had become just another memory. But he owed the man a lot more than that.