Eye of the Beholder (A Miss Henry Mystery Book 7) (Miss Henry Mystery Series) (2 page)

Juliet’s thought processes were
unusually extractive. She couldn’t help it. Her brain constantly looked for patterns, or breaks in patterns, and then began assembling theories to explain them. The complete lack of any sign of human habitation prompted further grim ratiocination, which forced Juliet to rethink the matter of their being some sort of acceptable hotel in Keensboro. Whatever wide spot in the road Keensboro was, it couldn’t be very wide if the main way to it was a one-and-a-half-lane rutted path that deer would sneer at. Jeffrey, unless he was crazy—which hardly seemed the case—must not have been aware of this difficulty when he offered her a ride. Ergo, Jeffrey truly did not know the area.

That fact did not have to be interpreted in a sinister
way, but she tucked it away where it would be remembered if other facts or misfortunes came to light.

The
Packard’s defroster was good, but it was slowly losing the battle with the weather and Jeffrey was forced to wipe the condensation away with some sort of shammy. In spite of predictions, the impossible meteorological conditions were actually growing worse. Had the tropical storm changed course and headed north of the Carolinas? Surely storms were supposed to lose their power as they headed inland. Unless it had turned into a hurricane. How did anyone endure the awful weather? It was exactly the kind of thing that terrified Noah into his ark.

Juliet consulted her phone and found it
still unresponsive.

“Can we try the radio?” she asked
, eyeing the antique in the dashboard that had obviously been installed around the time that Kennedy was president.

“I’ve had no luck so far,”
Jeffrey answered, but Juliet leaned in and turned it on. The lights were working, but nothing but varying degrees of static filled the air as she turned the dial. Conceding defeat, she turned off the radio again.

They were brought up short by an unplanned stream fording the road.

“Let me guess, this was the way to Keensboro?”

“Yes, ma’am. I
know it wasn’t the plan, but I think it might be best if we went straight on to Reich House first.” He nodded at an even smaller road to the left. “It is just a few miles more and this side of the flood.”

“Okay.”
What else could they do? Turning around wasn’t an option on the narrow road and they couldn’t reverse all the way to the airport.

The
thoroughfare was bad though, and Juliet began to rethink the idea of reversing to the airport. She was about to protest their continued journey when finally a sign of civilization appeared. It was a pair of large gates flanked by what were probably gargoyles, but in the downpour it was difficult to say exactly what they were though the name
Reich
was quite clear since the letters were nearly three feet high. Juliet was relieved that the iron monsters were open. They had obviously been propped ajar before the storm since the bars were buried to head height in storm debris. Including several spiky shrubs that looked like mutant hedgehogs.

The narrow passageway of
willow and thorny shrub that had overgrown the gateway scraped against the car as Jeffrey eased through it. It would probably be colorful in the spring when bursting with new leaves and blossoms and home to nesting birds, but at night it was frankly intimidating and Juliet did not care for serpentine ripples in the foliage right near the soggy ground. It was likely just the wind or maybe deer looking for shelter, but she couldn’t help but think of snakes driven to higher ground by the floodwater. Down deep, inside her bones and in the recesses of her mind, she was growing afraid. Juliet fought the feeling as soon as she realized the seeds of panic had sprouted. Fear had its uses, but there was a time and a place for it. In their current predicament, fear wasn’t a help.

The
y passed the overgrown gates with only moments to spare. Behind them there was a sharp crack and a prolonged moan audible even above the drumming on the roof. Juliet turned in her seat and saw a large tree limb splash down in the middle of the road. The raw wood of the break looked like it was bleeding in the car’s red taillights.

Atavist
ic dread welled up, in spite of her efforts to contain it. Fate was clearly against them.

“Tree came down?”
Jeffrey asked. He sounded shaken.

“Yep. Right in the middle of the road. There is no turning back now.”
Juliet was proud that her voice was calm.

Jeffrey
just grunted. His hands appeared white as opera gloves or bleached bones as they gripped the wheel. It took Juliet a moment to realize that she was looking at actual driving gloves and not skeletal fingers that clung to the wheel.

The road widened only slightly
, but it was enough to save the Packard’s paint from the sharp branches of unfriendly bushes. A straggle of untended flower beds surrounded by shapeless boxwoods edged their narrow path. The flowers might have been pretty once but were long dead and arched over as they rotted from within. There were also thickets of pine but they suffered from a sort of arboreal erectile dysfunction. This was caused by a virus that was slowly spreading through the state’s forest. Juliet had received the lecture from a forester who bought one of her giant redwood shirts at the festival.

At last a dwelling appeared.
It was large enough to be noticed even in the heart of a storm, and not in a wholly favorable way. The columns of the house were too close together, like spectators crowding under the overhang to watch the storm. Magnolias, which would have curtsied politely in a normal breeze, cowered like victims under the last, shedding leaves as the ruthless wind beat them. The only sign that this wasn’t an off-season haunted house attraction was a soft glow in one of the windows.

Still,
whatever its design flaws, it was shelter. She should be thrilled since it was what she had been praying for the last hour and more.

“This is it?” Juliet asked
with disfavor, though the answer was obvious.

“Uh-hu
h,” Jeffrey answered as he stopped the car with its headlights facing the door. He spoke with unusual brevity, making her suspect that he wasn’t comfortable either. That was understandable. The rain had made sinister what was an already spooky house and had mystified the surrounding wild woods that pressed in far too presumptuously for Juliet’s taste. The house might have been pretty once but it had gone to wrack and ruin.

“Well
then.” The car, whose idling engine was usually strident and strong, was muted by the wind and rain, its powerful lights made vague and barely capable of lighting the porch. Even the sound of the windshield wipers was drowned out by the rain and wind. “I suppose there is nothing for it but to knock and hope it isn’t a ghost that answers.”

Juliet threw open her door, snatched up her duff
el, and dashed for the porch. Jeffrey called out to her but his voice was cut off by the slamming door and the moaning of the wind. Juliet was soaked through every layer of clothing seconds after entering the downpour and had water running into her shoes by the time she dashed under the marginal safety of the porch roof.

“Damn it.”

The front door released its grip slowly under her knuckles and Juliet barely waited for it to open to body width before pushing inside. It took Juliet to notice that she was alone because the darkness was only broken by the palest of glows coming from a room on her right. It was hard to see through the smoke that curled through the air, making the currents visible.

“Hello?”

There did not appear to be anyone in the doorway
trying to prevent her entrance. Perhaps they were sheltering behind the heavy wood panel, trying to avoid the wind. But no, the door had simply been unlatched and waiting for someone to open it. That seemed a bit trusting, but perhaps Jeffrey had been expected and the door left open for him?

Juliet
stepped further into a fug that was only one part oxygen to two parts smoke. Fortunately the odor announced the source as a pipe or pipes and not an electrical or gas fire consuming the old firetrap of a house. That did nothing to answer the question of who had opened the door or been smoking with such dedication only minutes before they arrived.

The candle on the table
just behind the door and the car’s drowning headlights provided just enough light to show her that the foyer was empty, except the smoke which had curdled in one particular corner and rather resembled a hunchbacked beast doing its best to transform into something human. There were also several spots on the wall where picture frames had hung. One frame remained but it was empty. The picture had been cut or torn away, leaving a few shreds of canvas.

Juliet couldn’t be positive, but her gut said that the act was vandalism and not thievery. That kind of anger
was almost universally a sign of madness and always made her nervous.

“Hello?” she tried again and with a little more force. “Mr. Markham?
Mr. Reich?”

She wished that
Jeffrey would follow her, but he was staying with the car, using its headlights to illuminate the porch since the moon and stars would never be able to punch a hole through the clouds that smothered the sky. She was on her own for the time being. She had to hope that Mr. Reich was not a nervous, gun-bearing type of homeowner.

For a moment she
wanted Esteban or Raphael to be there with her, in front of her, but then she took her nerves in hand and scolded them for being so craven. The atmosphere was gothic, to be sure. But nothing had threatened her except the rain and she was safely out of that for the time being. She was past the age of being frightened by boggles and smoke.

Juliet looked around.
There was no suit of armor standing guard, but there were several heads which were missing their bodies. The dusty moose looked especially mournful at his undignified state. Overhead, the ceiling pressed low in the feathery light. Juliet peered upward but could see no cobwebs, though the impression that they were there and still occupied by hostile arachnids was strong. A few broken-back chairs crouched by the walls, colorless in the gloom. Perhaps they hid there out of shame.

Then the lights went out.
Juliet prided herself on her calm, but the sudden dark and blast of wind that buffeted her face made her gasp and jump the tiniest bit.

A car door slammed and feet pounded up the stairs. The steps were heavy because
Jeffrey was carrying both a briefcase and a small travel case in worn cowhide. By the time he had made it in the door, Juliet had restored her face to a mask of calm.

His
hurried entrance dispelled the smoke monster, though the air was still thick with pipe residue. Jeffrey shut the door softly, closing out the wind and making the sound of their dripping clothing quite loud on the marble floor. His eyes were squinted against the poisonous atmosphere.

“Mr. Markham is a smoker?” Juliet guessed
, her voice rough, and she had the urge to reach for his hand so that she wouldn’t get lost in the dark.

“Yes. They both are.
Hello,” Jeffrey called, but no one answered him either.

Lines from the de la Mare poem
“The Listeners” came forcibly to mind.

But only a host of phantom listeners

That dwelt in the lone house then

Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight

To that voice from the world of men
…

“Do you think that they’ve gone to bed?” After smoking five boxes of cigars and leaving the front door ajar to avoid asphyxiation.

“Must have.”
Jeffrey looked toward the doorway where the faint light flickered.

“But maybe we should check.
They might have fallen asleep by the fire.” Juliet didn’t know why she said this, but the small hairs on her arms were standing erect and it wasn’t because of the cold. She would not be at ease until she found the source of that flickering light.

They both turned toward the small door where
wavering light played. Juliet let Jeffrey take the lead since he was marginally less a trespasser than she was. They had to move single file since the door would not allow them to stand abreast, and the small passage into the room beyond was narrow and so low that Jeffrey had to stoop to enter.

It should have been a relief to enter what
had been a library and find a small fire kindled on the hearth, but the flames gave out little light or warmth and the slightly improved light only served to underline how close to derelict the house was. The once handsome room had been stripped to the plaster and sometimes beyond. Most of the books were gone and the few that remained were stacked on the floor because the built-in shelves had been torn out. Only the fireplace surround remained and that was likely because it was badly damaged. It looked like something with giant claws—or a crowbar—had attacked it, defacing the creatures that had been carved into the dark wood.  There was a wingback chair and a settee where people might sit, but the horsehair had split and it was hemorrhaging cotton batting. There was the smell of smoke in the air, but it might have followed them into the room since the air was eddying in that direction.