I thought about Ray Czabo on the way to Two Mile. He was no angel, and his actions in the past had led to him being beaten up more than once, usually with some justification, but it was unlikely that his ghoulish tendencies would lead someone to kill him. I recalled The Collector, standing in the flickering light behind Denny Maguire’s bar. I wondered if he kept a gun under those layers of old clothes along with a knife.
Then again, Jansen might be wrong about Ray’s estranged wife, but I didn’t think so. A woman who has just killed her husband, or conspired in his death, is not going to be too concerned about an old injury to him caused by someone else. When Mrs. Czabo reminded me of my first encounter with her husband, the one that had left him with a broken nose, she seemed genuinely aggrieved on his behalf. She could simply have been putting on an act for my benefit, but I could see no percentage for her in that.
All I knew for sure was that Ray Czabo’s death roughly coincided with the appearance of the photograph in the mailbox of the Grady house, and that someone had returned to his apartment after I’d been there, maybe to resume the search for something that had been missed the first time, or to ensure that there was no evidence left lying around. My guess was that, when the cops arrived, the apartment was neat and tidy, and the boxes that I had seen dislodged had been restored to their rightful place.
If all of those events were linked, then a possible conclusion was that one of Ray’s excursions down to Two Mile had coincided with the appearance of the individual responsible for the photo in the mailbox, and that person had killed Ray in order to ensure that he didn’t tell anyone what he had seen. If that was the case, then Matheson had been right all along to worry. Pranksters don’t shoot people with a.22, because it’s hard to laugh with holes in the top of your head. The man-and I had no doubt that it was a man-who placed the picture of an unknown girl at the Grady house was deadly serious about what he was doing.
It was time to talk to Chief Grass again, but when I called I was told that he wasn’t available. I left a message for him, but he didn’t call back.
VIII
By the tenth day, the surveillance was taking its toll upon me. Unlike Angel and Louis, I could not take a break and divide the duty with someone else, and my body clock was completely confused. Even though I slept when I returned home to Rachel, or grabbed a couple of hours on the sofa bed once Angel and Louis arrived, I still found myself drifting at times. Colors appeared too bright, and sounds were either muffled or painfully clear. Sometimes I was unable to tell if I was dreaming or waking. I spoke to Matheson once or twice, and informed him that what we were doing was untenable in the long term. I agreed to complete the second week of surveillance, once I had spoken to Angel and Louis and secured their consent, but it seemed like a lost cause. I was considering taking up Clem Ruddock on his offer of some help, especially as Rachel was due any day now and I wanted to be with her. I spent most of my time worrying about her. My cell phone was always close at hand, its ring tone muted but still audible, even in sleep.
On the tenth night, I saw a figure moving among the trees beside the Grady house.
I had heard no car approach, although in my shattered state I couldn’t be certain that I had not simply missed its approach. I rose and made my way through the farmhouse, stopping to retrieve my gun from the holster hanging on the back of the unmade sofa bed. It felt both strange and familiar in my hand, for it had been months since I had held it with even the vaguest intention of putting it to use. Finally, I made a call to Angel and Louis. If I was just being jumpy, the worst they could do was shout at me a little.
I left through the front door, pulling it closed silently behind me so that the wind would not catch it and alert the presence in the woods to my approach. I made my way down the slope, sticking close to the trees, until I could smell the rotting of timbers and faint odor of smoke that hung about the place. I circled the trees, hoping to come up on the intruder from behind, but when I reached the spot where I had seen him he was gone, and there was only a stamped-out cigarette butt where I felt certain that The Collector had recently stood.
I retreated to the periphery of the forest, shielding myself behind a tree, and scanned the property. I could see no sign of movement. It didn’t make me feel any less nervous. After a while, I made my way to the Grady house, keeping my back to its walls. I checked the sides, then approached the window of the old receiving room at the front of the house, to the left of the door. I thought of the figure in the mirror, caught by Ray Czabo’s flashbulb, but when I pressed my face to the crack in the wood I could see nothing in the darkness.
I stepped away, and aimed my flashlight at the steel door barring entry to the house. The padlock was gone. I moved closer, and tested the door by pulling it toward me. It opened with some resistance, and a lot of noise. The main door behind it was already ajar. I pushed it open a little farther and stepped back, not sure what to expect, but there was no sound from within. After a couple of seconds spent debating my choice of career, I stepped inside.
The smell of rot was stronger now, as was the chemical stench of the wallpaper pastes. A large strip of paper had come loose from the wall of the entrance hall since I had been there last, and it hung at an angle like a bookmarked page, exposing the damp plaster beneath. I shined the flashlight on it and saw what looked like fragments of letters and drawings beneath the paper. I pulled the strip away.
The wall was covered in writing and symbols, none of them familiar to me. I thought that the language might have been Latin, but the script was so faded it was impossible to tell. I tore another strip from the wall, and more writing was revealed, this time adorned with circles and stars. There was a purpose to this, but I could not guess what it might be. The smells of the house, seemingly intensified by my action in pulling away the paper, made me feel ill. I jammed a handkerchief to my nose and tried to breathe shallowly through my mouth as I moved toward the dining-room door. I pushed at it with my foot and entered.
The connecting doors between the two rooms were open, as though in expectation of some great party that would now never take place. The mirrors stared down upon dusty floors and torn drapes. They should have reflected what I saw, but they did not. Instead, I saw in their decaying glass the gleam of lighted chandeliers, and expensive, hand-printed paper on the walls. The drapes were no longer faded and ripped, but vibrant and fresh. There were thick carpets upon the floors, and a dining table set for two people.
I felt my shoe scuff the dust upon the bare boards under my feet. There was nothing in this room but filth and dead bugs, yet in the mirror I saw the house as it might have been. I passed through the connecting doors into the receiving room, and there glimpsed thick couches and matching smoking chairs, and walls lined with books, all reflected in the depths of the mirrors upon the walls.
It’s his house, I thought. It’s Grady’s house, as he saw it in his own mind.
I felt a presence behind me, but when I turned I saw only my own reflection in the mirror in the hallway, set against the wonders of the ornate rooms at my back. But something else was there, waiting in the glass. I sensed it, even as my vision swam and a coughing racked my body as the stench of old glue and damp seemed to grow stronger.
Then I noticed for the first time that the door to the basement was no longer closed and locked. I knew there was another mirror on the door, and that if I looked into its face I would see more figments of John Grady’s imagination, somehow wheedling their way into my consciousness.