There was also a coiled, but rotting, water hose and some old lawn tools.
But the garage was only a small part of the old carriage house, and Eric shut off the overhead light, closed the door, and began exploring. On the side of the structure that faced away from the house, he found several doors, one of which opened onto a small foyer at the bottom of stairs that led to the old grooms’ quarters above. Another door led into what must have once been a stable with enough stalls for half a dozen horses, but the stalls had long since been converted to other uses. At the back was the former tack room, still with a few old bits and bridles hanging on its walls. There was a long workbench backed by a pegboard full of tools, but still no sign of fishing tackle.
He moved on, coming to another door. Pulling it open, he found a room filled with a jumble of old furniture and boxes that looked as if they were about ready to split open.
He stepped into the room, gazing at the furniture. He could tell that some of the pieces were old — there was a mahogany table with a deep patina that told him it was at least a hundred years old, but some, like a chest whose white paint was chipped and stained, didn’t appear all that old, and looked like it must have been junk even when it was new.
But what was it doing in here? Some of the furniture looked like it belonged in the house, but what about the rest? The stuff like the white chest?
Could it have been hauled down from upstairs, where the grooms used to live?
Moving slowly through the room, Eric let his hands brush over the pieces, his fingers almost tingling as they touched the surfaces. Most of them felt just like what they were — old wood. But some of them—
“Eric!” His dad’s voice jerked him out of his reverie, and even through the walls of the carriage house he could hear that his father was angry.
“Coming,” he yelled, his voice echoing oddly in the small room, though furniture and boxes crowded the floor. He quickly threaded his way out, closed the storeroom door behind him, and left the building, closing the outer door as well.
His father was standing in the driveway, a tackle box in one hand, two rods in the other. “Where have you been?” he demanded.
Eric cocked his head. “Looking for tackle,” he said.
His father snorted. “It was in the basement — I found it half an hour ago. And I’ve been yelling for you ever since! Have you suddenly gone deaf?”
“Half an hour?” Eric echoed, staring at his father in disbelief. “I just went in there a couple minutes ago—”
“It wasn’t a couple of minutes ago. It was—” He raised his wrist and looked pointedly at his watch. “—exactly thirty-two minutes ago. And Jeff Newell just called. They’re going to be here in less than an hour, so if we’re going to take that boat out, we’ve got to do it and get back so I can start the barbecue.”
“I’m sorry,” Eric said, his head suddenly swimming. “I can’t believe I was in there—”
“Daydreaming!” his father finished for him. “So if we’re going, let’s go. Come on.”
Eric took the poles from his father and followed him down to the boathouse. Half an hour? He’d been in that storeroom for half an hour? It didn’t seem possible.
Dan stepped into the boat, set the tackle box on the middle seat, laid the rods on the floor, then sat in the bow. A moment later Eric had settled in the stern.
The motor started on the first pull, and as Eric released the stern line from its cleat, his father untied the bow line. Putting the engine in gear, Eric nosed the little skiff out of the boathouse.
As his father opened the tackle box and began searching through the jumble of hooks, lures, and sinkers inside, Eric headed onto the lake, but found himself turning to look back at the old carriage house.
Half an hour? He’d been inside for half an hour?
Even now it seemed he hadn’t been in the place more than five minutes. Ten at the most. He’d taken a quick look in the garage and the workshop — it couldn’t have taken more than two minutes. Then he’d gone into the storeroom and—
— and suddenly he couldn’t quite remember what he’d been doing. Just looking at stuff.
And touching some of it.
The fingers of his right hand tingled slightly at the memory of it.
But that was all.
And it had been only a few minutes — he felt sure!
Except that now, as he gazed at the carriage house that was growing smaller as they motored out onto the lake, he wasn’t so sure.
A moment later the building disappeared behind a screen of trees, and his father’s voice once again pulled him out of his reverie.
“She’s running fine,” Dan said. “Why don’t we hook up a couple of lures?”
But even as he began fishing, Eric’s mind was still on the storeroom in the carriage house. Kent and Tad would be here soon, and maybe after dinner tonight he’d take them down there.
Suddenly, the idea of exploring the storeroom and finding out exactly what might be inside it was far more exciting than fishing.
With fishing, all he’d get was the occasional trout or bass or muskie.
But in that strange storeroom, there was no telling what he might find.
• • •
ELLIS LANGSTROM DROPPED the last weed in the bucket, rubbed his aching shoulders, and finally stood up to assess his afternoon’s work. The entire border of flowers around the Islers’ summer house was weed free, the soil dark with fertilizer, and the flowers — whatever they were, which Ellis neither knew nor cared to know — actually seemed to be a few shades brighter now that there were no weeds around them.
More to the point, Mrs. Henderson would be happy, and so would the Islers, when they arrived tomorrow.
The yard cleanup had been a bigger job than he’d thought, and now he tried to stretch the pain out of his back as he searched for anything he might have forgotten.
There didn’t seem to be anything — the place looked great, and even Rita Henderson would have to admit it.
Ellis pulled off his gloves and tossed them into the bucket on top of the weeds just as Adam Mosler — stripped to the waist and streaked with sweat and dust — came around the corner of the house, using a filthy bandanna to wipe a smear of dirt from one cheek. The bandanna only made the smear worse.
“It’s raked,” Adam stated, sounding more resentful about having had to remove the mown grass from the front lawn than pleased to have finished the job. “Are you done?” He scanned the patio area disinterestedly. “’Cause even if you’re not, I am.”
“Thanks a lot,” Ellis said, then realized the sarcasm would be lost on Adam. “Yeah, I think it’s done.”
“Yeah, well, you owe me.”
“Hey, it’s not like no one’s paying you.”
“There’s still about ten million better things to do. I feel like a pig.”
“Look like one, too,” Ellis observed archly as he dropped down onto the cool grass and stretched out, feeling his aching muscles finally beginning to relax.
“Hey, check that out.”
Ellis sat up and followed Adam’s gaze, but saw nothing but two people fishing a few hundred yards offshore. “What?”
“That piece-of-crap tin boat? That’s the one from Pinecrest. And that’s the conehead from Pinecrest in it. What a prick.”