House
of Secrets
A
Shandra Covington Mystery
Jeffrey
Savage
Chapter 1
They say the human
subconscious is capable of picking up hidden danger signals long before the
conscious mind is aware that anything’s wrong. The senses tingle. The small
hairs on the back of the neck stand. Adrenaline races through the body. It’s
supposed to be a holdover from the times when having a bad day meant ending up
inside a saber tooth’s belly.
Well, maybe I’m just not
in touch with my inner cavewoman. Or maybe my receiver was on the fritz that
day. Whatever the case, I don’t remember feeling any sense of peril, no
premonitions of impending doom, as I reached the top of the rise revealing the
house on the hillside.
My name is Shandra
Covington. I’m a reporter for the Deseret
Morning News,
If that still sounds
glamorous, you’ve got to get out more.
To the best of my
recollection, as I pulled my little MGB off the road as far up the overgrown
drive as I dared, my subconscious and conscious minds were both pretty tied up
demanding to know why I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. They were also
wondering where I could find a bacon-double-cheeseburger, heavy on the pickles
and onions, with steak fries and one of those chocolate shakes you have to eat
with a spoon.
I know that sounds more
like a trucker’s meal than the afternoon repast of a five-one blonde who still
has to buy most of her clothes in the girls
section. What can I say? I have a fast metabolism.
The other women at work
give me a lot of flak about my appetite. How
can you eat like that? It’s unfair, and I’m
so jealous. But none of them have to ask the clerk at Mervyn’s, “Do you
have these jeans without Winnie the
Pooh on the pocket?”
Trying to ignore the
gurgling sounds coming from my stomach, I took off the baseball cap that keeps
me from turning into a puffball when I drive with the top down, and shook out
my hair.
“Well, Royce, we’re here,”
I said, taking my camera from the passenger’s seat. My car’s name is Royce, as
in Rolls Royce. If I can dream of winning a Pulitzer Prize one day, why can’t
he have dreams of his own? He ticked back at me contentedly.
When I’d left
Tucking my hands into
the back pockets of my jeans, I surveyed the hybrid structure, half log cabin,
half two-story Victorian, and the woods beyond it. It was the first time I’d
seen Gam’s house in over twenty years.
The place looked
smaller, more ordinary than my childhood memories of it. I took in the sagging
front porch. Wild lilacs were pushing up through several of its splintery
boards. The white paint and green trim were peeling, and although none of the
windows were broken (surprising after all this time), they were coated with
thick layers of grime. Around the side, the rusty old propane tank looked like
the world’s biggest and dirtiest cold capsule.
Still, despite the
disrepair, some of the old magic remained. Maybe it was the way the thick
groves of aspen and pine crowded close, the crystal blue waters of
As a little girl, I’d
sit beneath those trees listening to my grandmother tell me about Hansel and
Gretel or Sleeping Beauty. After the stories, as we walked down to the lake, I’d
scatter bits of my tuna sandwich behind me, imagining that somewhere in those
woods was an enticing little gingerbread house.
Shaking my head—as if I
could physically clear out the memories—I reminded myself that I was here to
sell the house Gam had left to my brother and me. Reliving childhood memories
couldn’t bring my grandmother back. And if she had been there, she would undoubtedly have scolded me for not
focusing on the present. Gam was big on leaving the past in the past.
I checked my watch. It
was not quite two. If I was quick, I could snap a few pictures of the house to
use in the listing, sign the real estate agreement, and get something to fill
my stomach before heading back to the city. Lifting the Nikon that hung from a
strap around my neck, I adjusted the aperture for the bright sunlight and
grimaced at what I saw. This was going to require some seriously creative
photography, preferably shot from a great distance with lots trees filling the
frame.
The still of the
afternoon was broken by the snuffle, rattle, and cough of a laboring engine. I
turned in time to see an ancient-looking pickup come trundling up the road.
Abruptly the driver swung the steering wheel hard to the right and brought the
truck to a shuddering stop amid a cloud of thick, blue exhaust.
Lowering my camera, I
read the filthy sign on the passenger door: Pete’s Concrete
“You lost, missie?” The brown,
lined face—Pete’s, I presumed—stared out at me from under the bill of an old
green baseball cap. Gleaming white teeth that could only be dentures smiled
behind leathery lips.
“I’m fine,” I called,
giving a half wave.
The blue eyes narrowed
suspiciously, the smile dimming a little.
“This is my
grandmother’s house,” I explained. “She passed away recently.”
Pete blinked, lifting
his cap a notch. He looked me up and down. “Thought you looked familiar. Elsie
was purty as a picture.” He picked at something between his teeth with the edge
of his thumbnail and nodded slowly. “You’re the spitting image of her.”
“Um, thanks.” I kicked
at the back tire of my car, feeling the blood rush to my face and hating it.
I’ve never been one to
accept compliments easily. I think it comes from growing up as a tomboy. Until
I was twelve or so, if anyone dared to call me pretty, I’d split their lip.
After that, the boys must have gotten the idea, because no one ever called me
pretty in high school. They never asked me out either. Their loss.
“Say she’s dead?” His
lips puckered, deep grooves creasing his forehead.
“A week ago Thursday.” I
expected that once I told him who I was, he’d be back on his way. But he showed
no signs of leaving and kept watching me from under the brim of his cap.
Uncomfortable under his
stare, I pointed back toward the house. “I just came to snap a few pictures, take
a walk through the place. My brother and I are putting the house up for sale.”
A cloud crossed Pete’s face, as though I’d suggested selling
my grandmother instead of just her house.
“No one’s used the place
in more than twenty years,” I said, feeling a little defensive. “To tell you
the truth, I didn’t even know Gam still owned it until I saw her will. She
never talked about it.”
Something in my words
had an immediate impact on the old man, or maybe it was just the dawning
realization of Gam’s death. His mouth clamped down, like a desert tortoise
pulling back into its shell. “No, don’t imagine she would,” he finally said,
his voice rusty.
“Why do you say that?” I
asked. But my question was drowned out by a shriek of clashing metal, as Pete
dropped back into his seat and forced the pickup into first gear.
If he’d heard me, he
didn’t bother to answer. The old truck began to ease forward as Pete stared at
Gam’s house with an unreadable expression.
“Wouldn’t stick around
here, if I was you.” His words were so soft I almost couldn’t make them out
beneath the labored rattle and clang of the engine. I stepped toward the side
of the truck, but he waved me away with a callused hand.
“No,” he said, shaking
his head as if I’d contradicted him. “Wouldn’t stick around here at all. Might
not be safe.”
With that, he pulled back onto the road and disappeared behind a blue plume of smoke.
What was that all about? While I might not be a
guy magnet, I’d never actively scared men away.
With the possible exception
of the time I fell into a basement full of raw sewage while covering a story
for my first paper, the Twin Forks Gazette. But even then, I
could blame my blind date’s hasty retreat on the fact that he arrived at my
apartment a full fifteen minutes early—getting there just as I shambled up the
walk like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Conjure up the worst smells you
can think of—rotten eggs, dirty diapers, the Great Salt Lake on a hot summer
day, its shore covered with dead brine shrimp—and multiply them by a hundred.
That will give you some idea of how bad I stunk.
His abrupt departure was at least understandable—if slightly
unfair. Pete’s actions were just strange. As I stood at the edge of the road,
the roar of the truck engine fading away to the silence that had preceded the
old man’s appearance, I replayed our conversation in my mind.
What had he said just
before he drove off—something about not being safe? Had he been threatening me?
I didn’t think so. He didn’t seem the type (unless he was planning on bricking
me inside a wine cellar like the guy in that Poe story). But he had certainly
been worked up.
With an uneasy glance at
the warped boards, I tentatively climbed the steps to the front porch. Prepared
to turn tail at the first sign of collapsing timbers, I approached the door.
Despite their weathered appearance, the boards seemed stable enough beneath my
feet.
I placed a hand on the
doorknob, and all at once a disturbing thought occurred to me. What if there
was someone inside the house? It was Gam’s, but for all intents and purposes
she had abandoned it years ago. What if someone had taken up residence in the
meantime? A transient, a deadbeat . . . or something worse.
Snatching my hand away
from the knob, I checked for signs that anyone else had been there. Nothing
obvious caught my eye—no rusty beer cans, old newspapers, or trampled grass.
Still, I couldn’t help feeling as though someone were watching me from inside
the darkened windows. The encroaching trees that had seemed enchanting before, now
felt menacing, their branches grasping hands stretching toward me.
I should have turned and
left. Would have, if not for my contrary nature. Ever since I was little, my
stubborn streak has gotten me into trouble. Steve Jr., my older brother by two
years, always swore that if someone wanted to kill me when we were kids all
they had to do was tell me not to
jump off a cliff.
I’ve mellowed a little
over time, at least I’d like to think I have, but the idea of anyone running me
out of my grandmother’s house hit a nerve. Before I could change my mind, I
grabbed the knob, shoved the door open—and gasped.
Chapter 2
I stood in the bright
sunlight, my eyes gradually adjusting to the dark interior. But my mind refused
to adjust to what I was seeing. On the drive up, I’d just assumed my
grandmother’s house would be empty. After all, it had been more than two
decades since Gam left her home and moved in with us, shortly after my father
abandoned our family.
Secretly I might have
hoped to run across some kind of memento—perhaps an old letter or a discarded
photograph. But any of her belongings would be long gone. After all, who moved
without taking their things?
And yet, staring into
the open doorway, I realized that was exactly what Gam had done.
The loveseat with the
twining rose pattern, the afghan hanging over its back, the brass lamp that
always reminded me of a big one-legged flamingo, the painting of a lone
lighthouse jutting out into the sea—everything was there, just as I remembered
it, only covered with layer upon layer of dust.
It was like looking into
one of those haunted houses they set up for Halloween. Spiderwebs had been
built, fallen apart, and been rebuilt so many times that the entire room seemed
to be slightly in motion. From every surface, gauzy gray fingers swayed in the
breeze I’d created by opening the door.
Heart pounding, fingers
trembling, I entered the room. A sour odor assaulted my nostrils. Something
scrabbled across the floor. I was halfway out the door before realizing what it
was.
Over the years, creatures had taken up residence in the house. Mice, I thought, trying not to imagine anything bigger. The air was heavy with an ammonia-like stink of animal droppings that reminded me of the primate house at the zoo.
I waited for the smell
to clear out a little, then stepped forward into the gloom, trying to
comprehend what I was seeing.
On the coffee table to
my left lay a paperback book, its dust-coated pages spread on the table like
the wings of some great gray moth. I picked it up and wiped the cover on the
leg of my jeans. Several of the pages fell from their binding, but the title
was easily readable. Call of the Wild
by Jack London. I’d read it in high school.
Through the kitchen
doorway, I could see a saucepan on the counter, and beside it, what looked like
an old soup can. The label had long since disintegrated, but I knew that it
would be
What was going on here?
My grandmother wasn’t fastidious, but she was neat. She never left the house
without at least straightening up a little. This didn’t look like the house of
someone who planned to move. But why?
Until that moment, I’d
never really given any thought to why my grandmother left her house. I was just
a kid when she moved in with us, still trying to cope with the fact that my dad
had deserted our family six months earlier, in pretty much the same fashion
Grandpa left Gam years before. If pressed for a reason, I guess I would have
said that my mommy needed her mommy. I was just happy to have her there.
Had I ever considered
what had become of Gam’s possessions? Her furniture, her porcelain figurines,
the intricate jigsaw puzzles she was always putting together? If so, I couldn’t
remember.
Turning, I could clearly
see my footprints in the thick dust that covered the hardwood floor. I was
standing in the half of the house that had originally been a two-room
cabin—built by my great-grandfather James Sullivan in the 1920s. I could
remember sliding across the polished pine boards in my stocking feet as a
child. Gam had taken great pride in keeping the floor highly waxed and polished
so that it gleamed a mellow gold in the afternoon sun.
Now, kneeling to brush
away more of the dust, I could see that part of the floor’s surface had been
marred by a dark stain. Maybe the tomato soup she’d been cooking. And yet,
despite the hot mustiness of the house, I felt tiny bumps breaking out across
my arms and shoulders. There was another splotch by the front doorway, and a
larger spot a little further in.
At the foot of the stairs—the
dividing line between the old cabin and the new wing that Great-grandfather
Sullivan had added on twenty years later—I noticed more of the stains, as
though someone had carried a paintbrush up the stairs, carelessly dripping and
spilling as they walked. I reached down to touch the dark substance that had
soaked into the wood, before pulling my hand back uneasily.
Above me, the stairwell
was a maze of cobwebs. Fending the hanging strands off with one arm—trying to
keep them from touching my face—I climbed the steps one at a time. Hung along
the wall, in an ascending line, was a row of picture frames. I rubbed at the
glass-covered portraits, my touch revealing faces peering out at me through the
dust. Some I recognized, many more I didn’t.
At one I stopped. It was
a black-and-white of my grandmother, taken in front of her house. She looked to
be in her mid-forties—before I was born, but some years after Grandpa had left
her.
I studied her eyes,
searching for traces of sadness—of loneliness. If they were there, I couldn’t
find them. To me she looked firm, resolute. I wished that I’d had this portrait
to use for her obituary. Gam didn’t like having her picture taken, and the only
one I’d been able to find as I rushed about making funeral arrangements was a
wedding photo of her and Grandpa that I’d located in my mother’s album.
The next picture was of
my mother and father. They couldn’t have been any older than their early
twenties. An odd lump filled my throat as I lifted the frame from the wall and
cleared the glass surface with the palm of my hand. They looked so young. It
was strange to see them cheerful.
Three years after Gam
came to live with us—just before my tenth birthday—my mother was killed in a
car accident, leaving Gam to raise us single-handedly. The memories I have of
my mother, and the few of my father, are not generally happy ones. I’d assumed
that the worry lines bracketing Mom’s eyes and mouth had always been there.
That my father had always been an angry and taciturn man. But these were the
faces of a carefree couple, very much in love by the looks of it. When had all
that changed?
Brushing off the picture
frame, I saw that it was sterling silver, raising another question. Why hadn’t
anyone looted the place after all these years?
I finished climbing the
stairs and stopped outside a closed door. Gam’s bedroom. When I came to visit,
I’d slept in the guest room across the hall. But if I started to feel scared or
lonely, I could creep through this door, knowing that Gam would let me snuggle
with her under the thick goose-down quilt.
Placing my left hand on
the dark wood, I paused. Though Gam had been dead for almost two weeks, I felt
like an intruder here.
Almost of its own
volition, my hand pushed the door. Years of disuse had left the hinges dry and
rusted. They cried out softly as I pressed them into use. The first thing I
noticed was the smell. Apparently the mice hadn’t made it into this room. Even
after all the years, the faint perfume of violets—Gam’s favorite scent—was
clearly discernible.
There was another smell
too. Something that made me think of the paperback book downstairs. It was like
old newspapers, weathered by time until they would crumble at the first touch.
The second odor, slipping stealthily from beneath Gam’s fragrance, made me
uneasy.
Although I knew there
was no one else in the house with me, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I
wasn’t alone. It was as if the memories here had been locked up for so long
that they’d taken on a weight and substance of their own.
I scanned the room,
noting nothing out of the ordinary. The bed was made with Gam’s usual neatness,
although it too was covered with a dark gray coat of dust and cobwebs. As I
crossed to the foot of the bed, a flash of movement caught my eye. Turning, I
stared into a pair of wide, shocked eyes.
A squeak of fear escaped
my throat before I realized the eyes I was staring into were my own. It was
just a mirror, my reflection dim beneath its murky surface. Putting a hand to
my chest, I tried to calm my heart’s trip-hammer pounding.
I grimaced and stuck out
my tongue. I meant it as a way to banish my fright, to prove that there really
was no boogieman in here. But the face floating up from the depths of the dark
glass looked so unlike my own that I immediately pulled back my tongue and
dropped my eyes.
On the dresser next to
the mirror, I saw something that brought back a flood of emotion. It was a
wooden box, about eight inches wide by six inches deep. I recognized it
instantly as Gam’s music box. I had one at home just like it. It had belonged
to my mother, but it hadn’t worked for years.
I turned the box over
and examined the silver handle on the bottom. Afraid that it would be frozen, I
carefully began to twist. The handle moved easily beneath my fingers, and I
could hear the click, click, click of a motor inside as I wound the spring.
When I opened the lid, a
tiny couple sprang to life accompanied by a tinny melody that had fascinated me
as a girl. Watching the the man in his black tux and the woman in her pink
formal spin across the mirrored surface of the music box, I remembered how I’d
dreamt of being a dancer. I guess most girls think about that at some point in
their lives. My dreams lasted right up until I realized I had all the rhythm of
a water buffalo.
“Yeah, well, being a
reporter beats the snot out of being a dancer anyway,” I said, with only a
trace of sour grapes. Closing the music box and setting it back on the dresser,
I noticed something reflected in the mirror. Lying on the floor, half in and
half out of the closet, it looked like a length of driftwood.
Approaching it, I could
see that the piece of wood was nearly six feet long and had been wrapped in
some kind of cloth. Why would Gam have hauled a log up into her room? I reached
down and turned it over. It was surprisingly light and moved easily beneath my
hand.
“What—” I began, before
my mind grasped what my eyes were seeing. The muscles in my jaw froze. My
fingers seemed unable to release their grip. Once again a cry of fear began to
tear itself from my throat. Only this time there would be no stopping it. The
log I was holding—what had looked like an old piece of driftwood—was the
mummified remains of a human body.