Ghosts

9

The house was on the edge of the ocean, 1.8 miles from the Bight, according to the odometer. He parked the car in a rutted sand driveway covered with snow and flanked by withered beach grass and plum. A solitary pine, its branches weighted by the snow upon them, stood to the left of the entrance door like a giant Napoleonic soldier outside Moscow. The house was almost entirely gray: weathered gray shingles on all of its sides; gray shingles of a darker hue on its roof; the door, the shutters, and the window trim all painted a gray that was flaking and faded. A brick chimney climbed the two stories on its northern end, contributing a column of color as red as blood, a piercing vertical shriek against the gray of the house and the white of the whirling snow. This time he had remembered to take along the flashlight. He played it first on a small sign in the window closest to the entrance door. The sign advised that the house was for rent or for sale and provided the name and address of the real estate agent to be contacted. He moved the light to the tarnished doorknob and then tried the knob. The door was locked.

“That’s that,” he said.

Hillary put her hand on the knob. She closed her eyes. He waited, never knowing what the hell to expect when she touched something. A snowflake landed on the back of his neck and melted down his collar.

“There’s a back door,” she said.

They trudged through the snow around the side of the house, past a thorny patch of brambles, and then onto a gray wooden porch on the ocean side. The wind here had banked the snow against the storm door. He kicked the snow away with the side of his shoe, yanked open the storm door, and then tried the knob on the inner door.

“Locked,” he said. “Let’s get back to town.”

Hillary reached for the knob. Carella sighed. She held the knob for what seemed an inordinately long time, the wind whistling in over the ocean and lashing the small porch, the storm door banging against the side of the house. When she released the knob, she said, “There’s a key behind the drainpipe.”

Carella played the light over the drainpipe. The spout was perhaps eight inches above the ground. He felt behind it with his hand. Fastened to the back of the spout was one of those magnetic little key holders designed to make entrance by burglars even easier than it had to be. He slid open the lid on the metal container, took out a key, and tried it on the lock. It slid easily into the keyway; when he twisted it, he heard the tumblers fall with a small oiled click. He tried the knob again, and the door opened. Fumbling on the wall to the right of the door, he found a light switch and flicked it on. He took a step into the room; Hillary, behind him, closed the door.

They were standing in a living room furnished in what might have been termed Beach House Haphazard. A sofa covered with floral-patterned slipcovers was on the window wall overlooking the ocean. Two mismatched upholstered easy chairs faced the sofa like ugly suitors petitioning for the hand of a princess. A stained oval braided rug was on the floor between the sofa and the chairs, and a cobbler’s bench coffee table rested on it slightly off-center. An upright piano was on a wall bearing two doors, one leading to the kitchen, the other to a pantry. A flight of steps at the far end of the room led to the upper story of the house.

“This isn’t it,” Hillary said.

“What do you mean?”

“This isn’t the house Greg wrote about.”

“I thought you said…”

“I said it started here. But this isn’t the house in Deadly Shades.”

“How do you know?”

“There are no ghosts in this house,” she said flatly. “There never were any ghosts in this house.”

They went through it top to bottom nonetheless. Hillary’s manner was calm, almost detached. She went through the place like a disinterested buyer whose husband was trying to force upon her an unwanted purchase—until they reached the basement. In the basement, and Carella was becoming used to these sudden shifts of psychic mood, she bristled at the sight of a closed door. Her hands began flailing the air, the fingers on each widespread like those of a blind person searching for obstacles. Trembling, she approached the door. She lifted the primitive latch and entered a shelf-lined room that contained the house’s furnace. Carella was aware all at once that the house was frighteningly cold. His feet were leaden, his hands were numb. On one of the shelves were a diver’s mask, a pair of rubber fins, and an oxygen tank. Hillary approached the shelf, but she did not touch anything on it. Again, as she had with the dinghy in the cave, she backed away and said, “No, oh, God, no.”

He felt something almost palpable in that room, but he knew better than to believe he was intuiting whatever Hillary was. His response was hard-nosed, that of a detective in one of the world’s largest cities, compounded of years of experience and miles of empirical deduction, seasoned with a pinch of guesswork and a heaping tablespoon of hope—but hope was the thing with feathers. Stephanie Craig, an expert swimmer, had drowned in the Bight in a calmer sea than anyone could remember that summer. At least one of the witnesses had suggested that she’d been seized from below by a shark or some other kind of fish. In the basement room of the house her former husband, Gregory, had rented for the summer, they had just stumbled upon a diver’s gear. Wasn’t it possible…?

“It was Greg,” Hillary said. “Greg drowned her.”

At the Hampstead Arms they booked a pair of connecting rooms for the night. As Carella dialed his home in Riverhead, he could hear Hillary on the phone next door. He did not know whom she was calling. He knew only that in the car on the way back to town she had refused to amplify her blunt accusation. Fanny answered the phone on the fourth ring.

“Hi,” he said, “I’m stuck up here.”

“And where’s up there?” Fanny asked.

“I asked Cotton to call…”

“He didn’t.”

“I’m in Massachusetts.”

“Ah,” Fanny said. “And what, may I ask, are you doing in Massachusetts?”

“Checking out haunted houses.”

“Your Italian sense of humor leaves much to be desired,” Fanny said. “Teddy’ll have a fit. She’s been thinking you were killed in some dark alley.”

“Tell her I’m all right and I’ll call again in the morning.”

“It won’t mollify her.”

“Then tell her I love her.”

“If you love her, then what the hell are you doing in Massachusetts?”

“Is everything all right there?”

“Everything’s fine and dandy.”

“It hasn’t snowed again, has it?”

“Not a flake.”

“It’s already snowed eight inches up here.”

“Serves you right,” Fanny said, and hung up.

He dialed Hawes at the squadroom and got him on the third ring.

“You were supposed to call and tell my wife I went to Massachusetts,” he said.

“Shit,” Hawes said.

“You forgot.”

“It was jumping today. Three guys tried to stick up a bank on Culver and Tenth. Locked themselves inside when the alarm went off, tried to hold off the whole damn Police Department. We finally flushed them out about four o’clock.”

“Anybody hurt?”

“One of the tellers had a heart attack. But that was it. I’m glad you called. We got something on the jewelry. A pawnbroker called the squadroom while I was out playing cops and robbers. Runs a shop on Ainsley and Third.”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“I called him back the minute I got in. Turns out some guy was in there this afternoon trying to hock the diamond pendant. Just a second, here’s the list.” The line went silent. Carella visualized Hawes running his finger down the list Hillary Scott had provided. “Yeah,” Hawes said, “here it is. ‘One pear-shaped diamond pendant set in platinum with an eighteen-inch chain of eighteen-karat gold.’”

“What was it valued at?”

“Thirty-five hundred.”

“Who pawned it?”

“Tried to pawn it. The broker offered sixteen hundred, and the guy accepted and then balked when he was asked for identification. They have to get identification, you know, for when they send their list of transactions to us.”

“And the guy refused to show it?”

“All the broker wanted was a driver’s license. The guy said he didn’t have a driver’s license.”

“So what happened?”

“He picked up the pendant and left.”

“Great,” Carella said.

“It’s not all that bad. The minute he left the shop, the broker checked the flyer we sent around and spotted the pendant on it. That’s when he called here. There was a number on the flyer, you remember…”

“Yeah, so what happened?”

“He told me the guy had his hands all over the glass top of the jewelry counter. He figured we could maybe lift some prints from it. He’s a pretty smart old guy.”

“Did you go down there?”

“Just got back, in fact. Left a team there to dust the jewelry counter and the doorknob and anything else the guy may have touched. Dozens of people go in and out of that place every day, Steve, but maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“Yeah, maybe. What’d the guy look like?”

“He fits the description. Young guy with black hair and brown eyes.”

“When will the lab boys let you know?”

“They’re on it now.”

“What does that mean? Tomorrow morning?”

“I told them it’s a homicide. Maybe we’ll get some quick action.”

“Okay, let me know if you get anything. I’m at the Hampstead Arms, you want to write down this number?”

“Let me get a pencil,” Hawes said. “Never a fuckin’ pencil around when you need one.”

He gave Hawes the number of the hotel and the room extension and then filled him in on what he’d learned at the Coroner’s Office. He did not mention any of Hillary’s psychic deductions. When he hung up, it was close to 6:00. He looked up Hiram Hollister’s home number in the local directory and dialed it.

“Hello?” a woman said.

“Mr. Hollister, please.”

“Who’s calling?”

“Detective Carella.”

“Just a moment.”

He waited. When Hollister came onto the phone, he said, “Hello, Mr. Carella. Get what you were looking for?”

“Yes, thank you,” Carella said. “Mr. Hollister, I wonder if you can tell me who typed that report filed by the inquest board.”

“Typed it?”

“Yes.”

“Typed it? Do you mean the typist who typed it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Would’ve been the inquest stenographer, I suppose.”

“And who was that?”

“This was three summers ago,” Hollister said.

“Yes.”

“Would’ve been Maude Jenkins,” he said. “Yup. Three summers ago would’ve been Maude.”

“Where can I reach her?”

“She’s in the phone book. It’ll be listed under Harold Jenkins, that’s her husband’s name.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hollister.”

He hung up and consulted the telephone directory again. He found a listing for Harold Jenkins and a second listing for Harold Jenkins, Jr. He tried the first number and got an elderly man, who said Carella was probably looking for his daughter-in-law and started to give him the number for Harold Jenkins, Jr. Carella told him he had the number, thanked him, and then dialed the second listing.

“Jenkins,” a man’s voice said.

“Mr. Jenkins, I’m Detective Carella of the 87th Squad in Isola. I wonder if I might speak to your wife, please?”

“My wife? Maude?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well…sure,” Jenkins said. His voice sounded puzzled. Carella heard him calling to his wife. He waited. In the next room, Hillary Scott was still on the phone.

“Hello?” a woman’s voice said.

“Mrs. Jenkins?”

“Yes?”

“This is Detective Carella of the 87th Squad in Isola…”

“Yes?”

“I’m here in connection with a homicide I’m investigating, and I wonder if you’d mind answering some questions.”

“A homicide?”

“Yes. I understand you were the stenographer at the Stephanie Craig inquest three years—”

“Yes, I was.”

“Did you type up the report?”

“Yes. I took the shorthand transcript, and then I typed it up when the inquest was over. We try to have the same person typing it as took it down. That’s because shorthand differs from one person to another, and we don’t want mistakes in something as important as an inquest.” She hesitated and then said, “But the drowning was accidental.”

“So I understand.”

“You said homicide. You said you were investigating a homicide.”

“Which may or may not be related to the drowning,” Carella said. He himself hesitated and then asked, “Mrs. Jenkins, did you yourself have any reason to believe Mrs. Craig’s death was anything but accidental?”

“None at all.”

“Did you know Mrs. Craig personally?”

“Saw her around town, that’s all. She was one of the summer people. Actually, I knew her husband better than I did her. Her ex-husband, I should say.”

“You knew Gregory Craig?”

“Yes, I did some work for him.”

“What kind of work?”

“Typing.”

“What did you type for him, Mrs. Jenkins?”

“A book he was working on.”

“What book?”

“Oh, you know the book. The one that got to be such a big best seller later on. The one about ghosts.”

“Deadly Shades? Was that the title?”

“Not while I was typing it.”

“What do you mean?”

“There wasn’t any title then.”

“There was no title page?”

“Well, there couldn’t have been a title page since there weren’t any pages.”

“I’m not following you, Mrs. Jenkins.”

“It was all on tape.”

“The book was on tape?”

“It wasn’t even a book actually. It was just Mr. Craig talking about this haunted house. Telling stories about the ghosts in it. All nonsense. It’s beyond me how it got to be a best seller. That house he was renting never had a ghost in it at all. He just made the whole thing up.”

“You’ve been in that house?”

“My sister from Ohio rented it last summer. She’da told me if there’d been any ghosts in it, believe you me.”

“This tape Mr. Craig gave you…”

“Uh-huh?”

“What happened to it?”

“What do you mean, what happened to it?”

“Did you give it back to him when you finished typing the book?”

“Didn’t finish typing it. Got about halfway through it, and then the summer ended, and he went back to the city.”

“When was this?”

“After Labor Day.”

“In September?”

“That’s when Labor Day is. Each and every year.”

“That would’ve been after his wife drowned,” Carella said.

“Yes, she drowned in August. Late August.”

“Was Mr. Craig at the inquest?”

“Didn’t need to be. They were divorced, you know. There was no reason to call him for the inquest. Besides, he’d already left Hampstead by then. I forget the actual date of the inquest…”

“September sixteenth.”

“Yes, well, he was gone by then.”

“How much of the book had you finished typing before he left?”

“I told you, it wasn’t a book. It was just this rambling on about ghosts.”

“More or less his notes for a book, is that how you’d describe—?”

“No, it was stories more than notes. About the candles flickering, you know, and the door being open after someone had locked it. And the woman searching for her husband. Like that. Stories.”

“Mr. Craig telling stories about ghosts, is that it?”

“Yes. And using a sort of spooky voice on the tape, do you know? When he was telling the stories. He tried to make it all very dramatic, the business about waking up in the middle of the night and hearing the woman coming down from the attic and then taking a candle and going out into the hall and seeing her there. It was all nonsense, but it was very spooky.”

“The stories.”

“Yes, and his voice, too.”

“By spooky…”

“Sort of…rasping, I guess. Mr. Craig was a heavy smoker, and his voice was always sort of husky. But not like on the tape. I guess he was trying for some kind of effect on the tape. Almost like an actor, you know, telling a spooky story on television. It sounded a lot better than it typed up, I can tell you that.”

“Mrs. Jenkins, have you read Deadly Shades?”

“I guess everybody in this town has read it.”

Except Hiram Hollister, Carella thought.

“Was it similar to what you typed from the tape?”

“Well, I didn’t type all of it.”

“The portion you did type.”

“I didn’t have it to compare, but from memory I’d say it was identical to what I typed.”

“And you returned the tape to him before he left Hampstead?”

“Yes, I did.”

“How long a tape was it?”

“A two-hour cassette.”

“How much of it had you typed before he left?”

“Oh, I’d say about half of it.”

“An hour’s worth, approximately?”

“Yes.”

“How many pages did that come to?”

“No more than fifty pages or so.”

“Then the full tape would have run to about a hundred pages.”

“More or less.”

“Mrs. Jenkins, I haven’t read the book—would you remember how long it was?”

“In pages?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, it was a pretty fat book.”

“Fatter than a hundred pages?”

“Oh, yes. Maybe three hundred pages.”

“Then there would have been other tapes.”

“I have no idea. He just gave me the one tape.”

“How’d he get in touch with you?”

“I do work for other writers. We get a lot of writers up here in the summer. I guess he asked around and found out about me that way.”

“Had you done any work for him before this?”

“No, this was my first job for him.”

“And you say there was no title at the time?”

“No title.”

“Nothing on the cassette itself?”

“Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, there was. On the label, do you know? Written with a felt-tip pen.”

“What was on the label?”

“Ghosts.”

“Just the single word ‘ghosts’?”

“And his name.”

“Craig’s name?”

“Yes. ‘Ghosts’ and then ‘Gregory Craig.’”

“Then there was a title at the time.”

“Well, if you want to call it a title. But it didn’t say, ‘By Gregory Craig,’ it was just a way of identifying the cassette, that’s all.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Jenkins, you’ve been very helpful,” he said.

“Well, all right,” she said, and hung up.

He frankly didn’t know how she’d been helpful, but he guessed maybe she had. During Hillary’s trance last Saturday she had mentioned the word “tape” over and again and had linked it with the word “drowning.” He had conjured at once the image of a drowning victim whose hands or feet had been bound with tape—a flight of fancy strengthened by the fact that Gregory Craig’s hands had been bound behind his back with a wire hanger. In one of Carella’s books on legal pathology and toxicology, he had come across a sentence that made him laugh out loud: “If a drowned body is recovered from the water, bound in a manner that could not possibly have been self-accomplished, one might reasonably suspect homicidal intent.” Stephanie Craig’s body had been unfettered, neither chain, rope, wire, nor tape trussing her on the day she drowned. But here was another kind of tape entering the picture—and Carella could not forget that Hillary had linked “tape” with “drowning.”

She came into his room now without knocking. Her face was flushed, her eyes were glowing.

“I’ve just been on the phone with a woman named Elise Blair,” she said. “She’s the real estate agent whose sign was in the window of the house Greg rented.”

“What about her?” Carella asked.

“I described the house that was in Greg’s book. I described it down to the last nail. She knows the house. It was rented three summers ago to a man from Boston. She wasn’t the agent on the deal, but she can check with the Realtor who was and get the man’s name and address from the lease—if you want it.”

“Why should I want it?” Carella asked.

“It was the house in Shades, don’t you understand?”

“No, I don’t.”

“It was the house Greg wrote about.”

“So?”

“He wasn’t living in that house, someone else was,” Hillary said. “I want to go there. I want to see for myself if there are ghosts in that house.”