“He never contacted you before that?”
Sadie shook her head. “I did try calling him at his home in Providence, but his phone had been disconnected.”
“What happened to him then?”
When he called today, Peter explained that he’d moved back to his boyhood home in Newport. That’s where we’re going now…Prospero House, his family’s oceanfront estate. He apologized for losing touch, but he said after his return home all those years ago, he got busy with family affairs, became something of a recluse.” Sadie sighed. “The truth is, dear, Peter could very easily…how do I put this? He could get lost in things.”
“What do you mean ‘get lost in things’?”
“He’d…obsess.”
“You mean he’d become compulsive? Like OCD?”
“Yes, dear…I’m sure you’ve noticed that particular tendency in some of our more, shall we say, enthusiastic collectors.”
“Now that you mention it…”
At least three regulars came to mind. They e-mailed or called like clockwork, looking for missing volumes in collections we’d never carried, signed editions we’d never advertised—just to be sure they hadn’t missed an announcement on our Web site or listing in our catalog. But their searching was passionate and constant, almost ritualistic. I had engaged each of them in conversation at one time or another and discovered we were just one call on a long list of calls they made every day.
“If Peter found himself on the receiving end of a major inheritance,” Sadie continued, “any number of things related to it might have taken hold of him and pulled him in…consumed him.”
“An estate in Newport is pretty impressive,” I noted. “He must come from real money, then?”
“It was a surprise to me, I have to tell you. To think that Peter came from old Newport stock, that his family owned a mansion. He’d never mentioned it to me in all the years we’d been friends. The Peter Chesley I knew was so unassuming. And I would have never guessed he came from money. The man always seemed so frugal.”
“So what kind of books did Mr. Chesley collect? Mysteries?”
“Oh, heavens no.” Sadie waved her hand. “Peter’s passion was history. The Revolutionary War—books by or about the Founding Fathers. I believe his great-great-great-grandfather was at Bunker Hill. He was crazy for anything dealing with that period.”
“You moved books like that?”
Sadie shrugged. “I moved everything and anything, in my time…. Oh, look there!”
We both saw the next turn at the same moment. Roderick Road was downright schizophrenic. With twists and turns that seemed to leap out of the darkness, the road appeared to have been designed around the landscape. We circled a huge outcropping of pure New England granite, and what appeared in the gloom to be a tree at least two hundred years old, its protruding roots gnarled.
“You should feel good that Peter didn’t forget you after all these years,” I said.
Sadie nodded. “Yes, it’s very nice of him to offer me first pick of the books he plans to sell. But for the life of me, I can’t see why I couldn’t come by tomorrow or Tuesday. Why we had to make this trip tonight of all nights.”
I raised an eyebrow. If the man had obsessive-compulsive disorder, I figured that was reason enough—and it also gave me a clue why Sadie had walked away from the relationship all those years ago.
“There’s the turn,” Sadie said.
I saw the gateposts at the last possible second, and hit the brakes too suddenly—the tires immediately began hydroplaning across the wet asphalt. Careening out of control, the Saturn spun off the road, into the shoulder, the soft, wet mud finally stopping us with a teeth-rattling jolt.
The car stalled, cutting off the hissing heater and swishing windshield wipers along with the rumbling engine. The abrupt silence was followed by the thump, thump, thump of pelting rain hitting the roof, the hood, the trunk.
“Are…Are you okay?” My voice cracked from the tension.
Face pale, Sadie took a deep breath and nodded.
What are you trying to do, baby, pull a Dutch act? Jack piped up in my head. If you wanted to off yourself, there’s no reason to take your sweet little ol’ auntie with you. And where did you learn to drive, anyway—the bumper cars at Coney Island?
Sadie and I sat in silence for a moment, listening to the rain batter the metal. Then I shifted into neutral and turned the ignition key. The engine came to life. We both let out the breaths we’d been holding. I eased the car into reverse and slowly applied the gas. The tires skidded a little, but the sedan rolled back onto the pavement without incident.
Two tall granite gateposts flanked the driveway, bridged by a wrought-iron arch that spelled out the house’s name in rusty, pitted letters. As I rolled through the open gate, lightning flared like a shattering bottle rocket, illuminating the sprawling mansion.
“Goodness!” Sadie exclaimed, getting a good look.
“Man alive,” I murmured.
I felt a shiver—but not from the raw weather. We had arrived at Prospero House.
“Looks like the architect couldn’t decide whether his client was the Addams Family or JP Morgan,” I said.
The looming, four-story mansion was so grotesque it even gave my ghost the creeps.
Nice joint, this place you’re going, Jack said. It’s got all the charm of Sing Sing.
CHAPTER 2
The Fall of the House of Chesley
I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him.
—Edgar Allan Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” 1845
I SHIVERED AS I stepped out of the warm automobile. A gothic-style portico shielded the entrance to Prospero House from the brute force of the wind and rain, but the night air was downright frigid.
Side by side, Sadie and I climbed the three stone steps that led to the mansion’s carved front doors. Flanking the entrance were two bronzed mermaids with long flowing hair and angelic faces, their scabrous tails encrusted by a green patina.
Before I located the doorbell, I heard the click of a bolt. Gradually, arthritically, one heavy door opened, its hinges moaning as if protesting the painful movement. Then a lashing burst of rain drummed the east wall of the portico, and a sudden bone-white flash revealed our host.
Tall but flimsy as a scarecrow, Peter Chesley’s sallow flesh was the color of old parchment, his once-blue eyes milky and bloodshot. His hair, no longer thick and golden, was nearly gone, save for a bristle-brush of gray ringing his pasty scalp. His ashen cheeks appeared caved in, giving his face the look of a deflated soccer ball.
Swathed entirely in black, the man’s soft velvet coat was natty and moth-eaten, with badly frayed sleeves. His threadbare pants hung too loosely over his thin hips, the cloth shiny with wear and stained with old food. The old man stood unsteadily on scuffed velvet slippers. The chipped and dented black cane he clutched in his gnarled left hand was more than an affectation.
This high-toned fruitcake’s dirty with more than money, Jack groused. He’s got enough cabbage to own this palace, but he can’t even clean up for his guests.
“Take it easy, Jack,” I silently replied. “He’s old. And he doesn’t look well.”
Well, stand back, this geezer looks like he’s going to peg out any second now.
At first glance, Chesley’s gaze seemed almost fearful. But the man brightened with recognition when he saw my aunt.
“Sadie,” he whispered.
The old man’s rheumy eyes shined, and, for a moment, I could see a glimpse of that brilliant blue Sadie had mentioned from her memories.