Peterson looked over at the camera and saw that it was still trained on him. “Get that off of me!” He shoved the lens away from his face.
Gabriel and John assisted Father Dolan to his feet. Then Gabriel looked at the camera team that was free at the moment and gestured that they should take Dolan outside for help.
“Gabe,” John leaned toward him just as Jenny and George walked up beside them. “Have you noticed the cold is still here?”
Gabriel nodded. He turned to face the others in the ballroom.
“Regardless who works at the network or not, we need to clear the house of everyone except my team, Ms. Reilly and one camera and sound man. Everyone else needs to leave — for your own protection.”
“What?” Kelly stepped forward.
“You heard me, Kelly. There is still activity in this room,” Kennedy said as he adjusted the small microphone to his mouth. “Harris, what have you got on the third floor?”
There was a burst of static and then Dalton came through loud and clear from the production van.
“The hallway lights played hell with the infrared and low light cameras, they’re just now clearing up. Wait, okay it looks like the master bedroom suite is — yes, its closed, but the sewing room door is still wide open. Now it’s the only light on that floor that’s out.”
Gabriel nodded and looked at Jackson.
“This is not a good place for a nonbeliever, Detective.”
Jackson shook his head and placed the radio back in his coat. “I think I’ll see it through, Professor.”
“You can’t say I didn’t warn you.” Kennedy looked around the room at the faces looking back at him. “Now, did everyone take note of the smell of perfume?”
“Why do you say perfume and not flowers?” Kelly Delaphoy asked.
“The odor was too powerful for flowers. No, that was perfume. When the voice finished what it had to say, the smell left, and the doors opened at the exact same moment. It went whenever the entity did when it left the ballroom.”
“Whatever we’re dealing with is slowly getting stronger,” George said. He stepped to the bar and eyed the bottle of whiskey. He grimaced and then turned away, much to Kennedy’s relief.
“Professor Gabe, you better look at this,” Leonard said from the large work table. He waved his three technicians up and out of their chairs, and then told them to vacate the house. “Go on, do what the professor says. Get while the getting’s good.” The technicians did as they were ordered.
Kennedy looked at the nearest monitor. The woman’s face was clearly made out, and then the picture changed to that of another, this one equally mysterious. Then another face appeared, this one a full length picture. She was dressed in turn of the century clothes, and the picture must have been over a hundred years old. Then another, and another — all dressed in the same period clothing. Some had husbands or other family members in the shots, others were alone.
“Where are these coming from?” Gabriel asked Leonard.
“It’s from the same program my people were running just before the power was sucked out of here.” He typed more commands. “These are Ellis Island shots. We were running employee records for the Lindemann sewing machine company and the textile companies.”
“Why is it doing that?” Julie Reilly asked as she and the others started crowding around the table holding the computer monitors.
“It’s doing it on its own,” Leonard answered.
Julie and Kelly simultaneously shoved the first team camera man in front of the table.
“Harris, are you picking this up?” Julie asked into her headset.
“We’re getting it. I don’t know what we’re getting, but it’s going out clean to the rest of the country.”
On the monitors a picture flashed, then the revolving show stopped. The lights flickered but stayed on. All eyes were on the pretty young woman framed on the monitors. She was dressed in the same clothing style as the others and she looked to be about seventeen, eighteen at the most. She was sitting at a small table with an old fashioned sewing machine and she was looking at the camera and smiling shyly.
“The happy workers of the Lindemann Textile Company,” Leonard read the caption, “Taken from the New York Post, February 3rd, 1925.”
“Gabriel, we’ve seen that face before,” Jenny said.
Gabriel sorted through a stack of folders until he found the one he was searching for. He opened it and studied something for a few moments. When he looked up, he wasn’t focusing on anyone in the room..
“Professor, we are live,” Julie reminded him.
Kennedy finally turned back to face the camera, and brought out an old eight by ten glossy photograph — a reproduction of a promotional still. The heading was in German, but everyone focused on the face alone. They all saw it at almost the same time.
“Gwyneth Gerhardt,” John Lonetree said.
“The opera singer who disappeared,” Julie said to the camera.
“No, but a relative. Maybe a sister. The resemblance is too close,” Gabriel said. He nodded for Leonard to do his thing.
Sickles leaned over and started typing his commands. While he did so, Kennedy waved George Cordero over to his side. On the computer monitors, the picture of the pretty girl was replaced by a very old-looking employment record.
“You hit it on the head. Magdalena Gerhardt, eighteen years old. She worked for the Lindemanns for eight months. Gerhardt was her maiden name. She married Paul Lester, a foreman at the mill, three months after arriving from Germany.”
“Her sister, I’ll bet anything on it,” Gabriel said. “Now, did she leave the company after she married?”
“She left, all right,” Leonard answered, “but it doesn’t say why. Her husband, too. Wait, here’s a note from the personnel office. It seems they both quit without notice.”
“George, I saw that look on your face. What are you feeling?” Gabriel asked.
Cordero cleared his throat and then looked away, as if he was reluctant to answer.
“George?” Kennedy asked again, this time with force. “Whatever it was, made you want a drink.”
Cordero shrugged the camera gently away with an annoyed look and raised hand. But then his eyes met Kennedy’s own.
“I’m not picking up much. It’s like looking at a scene through a bowl of milk. It’s the opera star’s sister, you’re right on with that. And I think, I feel, Leonard’s computers are being manipulated from… from—”
“The sewing room,” Kelly said, not being able to hold back, much to Julie Reilly’s annoyance.
“The basement. Or more accurately, the subbasement,” he finally said, moving his eyes from Gabriel’s.
“George, is that all?” Gabriel asked.
“The presence earlier, the voice…it was male…I think.”
“We all heard it for Christ’s sake, of course it was male. I have to hand it to you, Professor, your people don’t miss a trick.” Peterson walked toward the bar and retrieved his raincoat, pushing Wallace Lindemann to the side.
“I don’t know if it was…male. It had, I don’t know, an acting quality to it. Hell, Gabe, I don’t know.”
“Maybe it was old man Lindemann, my great granddaddy. That would be my bet,” Wallace said. He sipped his drink.
“Okay, let me know if you pick up anything else. For right now, Wallace here may have something — it’s a start, anyway.”
George nodded, knowing that he didn’t convey his true thoughts the way he would have liked.
“Look Gabriel, we’re kidding ourselves if we think we can get the answers here. The house hides its secrets well,” John Lonetree said. He looked from Kennedy to Jenny. “I have to go under. You know it, and I know it.”