“Maybe we’re on to something,” Donna said excitedly.
“Maybe we are.”
“God, this is great.”
Then Windom came back and she was all business again.
“What about the painful memories?” Donna said.
Windom shrugged. “Well, it’s no secret. He got himself involved — romantically involved, if you understand me — with a high-school teacher. The woman was a... well, very beautiful, very high-strung. There were some who said she was insane and some who said she was an alcoholic. But—” A kind of sadness came into his eyes. “I was single myself in those days. Had a few dates with her. She was very — sophisticated — for a town like Tanrow. Didn’t have many friends. Then she and Gil—”
This time it was a young man who came in and interrupted us. He seemed as nervous about buying flowers as I’d been at his age buying condoms.
Then a middle-aged woman walked through the door.
Windom smiled. “Business is getting good. Tell you what, who you should talk to, I mean, is Mrs. Paul Rutledge. She had a rooming house where the teacher stayed. Mrs. Rutledge is in the phone book.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I turned and started to leave.
“Wait a minute,” Donna said. “You forgot to ask him something.”
“What?”
“Mr. Windom?”
“Yes,” he said, turning back to Donna.
“What was the teacher’s name?”
“Oh,” he smiled. “I forgot to tell you, didn’t I? It was Eve. Eve Evanier.”
29
The Rutledge house was one of those big old three-story jobs that seemed ideal for hiding secrets. Shuttered windows hid the interior from scrutiny and the chipped paint and the leaning chimney spoke of tough times. A lean dog that seemed to be all ribs and teeth flung himself at the car like an arrow.
“No way,” Donna said. “I’ll wait here.”
“Hey, detectives and mail carriers aren’t supposed to care. We go anyway.”
“Not me.”
“C’mon.”
I opened the door to show her that I wasn’t afraid. Then the mutt tried to eat my hand. I closed the door instantly. His head came up to the window. He showed me his molars as if I were doing a dental inspection.
“God, look at him,” she said as he drooled all over the window.
His spittle formed clammy puddles on the glass. He was pretty disgusting.
Donna and I sat back and watched the house. The only thing that struck me as odd was the Oldsmobile convertible parked at an angle to the house. Ready for a fast getaway.
“How are we going to get in there?” Donna asked.
“Simple. I’m going to drive right up to the front door and we’re going to make a run for the screened-in porch. We should be able to beat the dog.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“You’re really crazy. He’ll gnaw my leg off by the time I get to the porch.”
“Lucky dog.” Even given the turmoil of our emotional life, I had hardly forgotten how desirable she was. So far all we’d shared was some relatively chaste kissing.
I started the car again.
“You ready?” I asked.
“Jeez.”
I put the car in gear. Drove up to the porch. My plan was simple. Run for the door. Fling it open. Keep the dog outside.
“Okay,” I said.
And I took off.
The Rutledge house was located on the edge of town. There were no other houses within a half mile. The dog could eat us and nobody would know. He got close to my heel, but I did a kind of kick — part Kung Fu, part Fred Astaire — and held him off just enough so that I could reach the steps three feet away.
“Shit!” Donna screamed behind me.
She was only two steps behind me. “Hurry up!”
I reached the screen door, ripped it open, and let her run in past me. Then I jerked the door closed and watched the mutt hurl himself against the screening. He was mad.
Donna was ecstatic. “We showed him.”
“Yeah. We did.”
“He really pisses me off.”
“The dog?” She sounded as if she were describing Richard Speck.
“Who else would I be talking about?”
“Oh.”
The front door led to a venerable vestibule that smelled of old wood, dust, and furniture polish. A different world spun in the molecules of this place — the world of my grandfather. We went inside.
On the right wall were several handmade wooden mailboxes. They stood empty. I glanced inside. Dust had accumulated in them an inch thick. The rooming house had fallen on hard times long ago.
“Mrs. Rutledge?” I called out.
I looked up the winding staircase that disappeared above. No sign of anybody. Nor was there any in the corridor that led to the main part of the house on this floor.
In the lemony-smelling gloom, Donna leaned in and took my hand. “Kind of spooky.”
“Yeah.” I kept thinking about the woman Eve. I also kept thinking about the Oldsmobile parked at such an odd angle outside. “Let’s try the parlor.”
The hallway creaked as we walked. Donna kept glancing up at the ceiling, as if she expected us to be attacked by bats. By the time we reached the parlor the hallway had gotten almost dark.
From beyond the double sliding doors came the faint sound of a radio tuned to a station that still played Mantovani albums. I knocked. Once. Nothing. I tried again. The sound seemed brittle, almost vulnerable in the turn-of-the-century silence. Still nothing.
Donna screamed before I really saw anything. They came out of the gloom near the back. Two of them. Wearing masks.
Wouldn’t you know — Frankenstein and Dracula.
They had been hiding in the deep day-end shadows collecting around a walk-in pantry.
They seemed to be wearing the same clothes they had worn the night they’d attacked me outside the bar. Now they’d added guns to their outfits.
“Get in there,” Frankenstein said, waving his weapon.
“God,” Donna whispered. “A criminal.”
“Yeah,” I said, “he probably has a record and everything.”
“Shut up and get in there,” Frankenstein repeated. His mask distorted the true quality of his voice.
I opened the sliding doors. There was a gray-haired woman in a faded housedress tied to a straight-backed chair in the middle of the room. She’d been gagged.
Dracula said, “We warned you, pal. The other night. Now it’s too late.”
“She’ll choke to death,” I said.
The way the woman swallowed, I could see she was having trouble breathing.
“Let me loosen her gag,” I said.
“A fucking boy scout.” Frankenstein laughed.
I went over to the woman. Took the gag off.
She had a fleshy, wrinkled face. Her eyes scanned me in gratitude and terror. “They wanted to know about Eve.”
“Shut up,” Frankenstein said.
The five of us said nothing for a time. I looked around the room. There was a mantel filled with black-and-white framed photographs. Shawls and doilies covered the armchairs and the lumpy couch. Ferns in various stages of dying stood in the northern-light window. The faint radio played Jo Stafford now. We were trapped in a time warp.
Dracula went over and got two more chairs. Donna glanced at me anxiously. I tried to calm her with my expression, but I was anything but calm myself.
Then it was our turn to sit down and be tied to the chairs. They made quick work of it, tying the knots tight enough to cut off the circulation in our wrists and ankles.
But they weren’t through, of course. This was just the beginning.
Dracula went out of the room. You could hear the dog coming back into the house with him. The mutt’s paws scratched on the hardwood floors as he slid around.