Chapter Fourteen
It was a relief when Perry’s picture flashed up on Nick’s cell-phone screen.
Nick was on stakeout, sitting in the cramped confines of his car, watching the closed blinds in the window of Room 206 at—kid you not—Le Rendezvous Motel in Van Nuys and feeling like an absolute shit for busting Perry’s balls about sticking it out at Angel’s Rest.
Of course Perry was going to keep his promise to Horace. Of course that was the right thing to do.
It was just… From the—very likely—lead paint on the walls to the—possibly dangerous—crackpots who dwelled within, that was not a healthy space. Even minus the alligator, the sneak-thief tenant, and the sword-carrying, disgruntled former employees, that was not a place for someone like Perry. The air itself was unhealthy.
None of which excused Nick acting like a jerk.
And still, knowing all that—feeling all that—Nick could only rasp out a gruff, “Hey.”
“It’s the Nevins,” Perry exclaimed. “Nick, it’s the Nevins. It’s got to be.”
“What’s the Nevins?” Nick asked cautiously. First and foremost was relief that Perry, as usual, was not holding a grudge. He did not sulk, he did not hold grudges, he was not spiteful. Nick had never known anyone as easy to get along with, which made him all the more impatient with his own behavior.
“The Nevins are writing those poison-pen letters to Horace. I know it.”
“What makes you think so?”
“He’s not dead,” Perry said.
“I’m not following.”
“They’re not trying to kill him. If they wanted him dead, he’d be dead by now. They want him to have another breakdown. They want him to be found crazy so that they can take over the property. The land this hotel is sitting on is worth millions. But Horace won’t sell. Won’t even consider it. If they killed him, they’d be the number-one suspects. Plus, Horace is always changing his will, so they can’t even be sure they would inherit.”
“Go on,” Nick said.
“I think at first they were just biding their time, waiting for Horace to go off the deep end or die a natural death. But they’ve been waiting forty years, and Horace is still pretty healthy and, yes, he’s eccentric, but he’s not crazy.”
“Debatable,” Nick said, “but go on.”
“I think they finally got tired of waiting, and for the last few years, they’ve been giving him a little push because Halloween is when it all happened.”
“Perry, honey—” Nick stopped, startled at the sound of that word slipping so naturally off his tongue. He had never called anyone “honey” before. He had never been a guy for endearments. Heck, he didn’t even use nicknames. But somewhere along the line, he had become a guy who used words like that. Somewhere along the line, Perry had gone from being his guy to being his honey.
Perry hadn’t noticed and was still racing through his reasoning. “Horace is more fragile this time of year. He starts going through his scrapbooks and photo albums, and he starts remembering. That’s why it always happens at Halloween. And I think this year everything is escalating because they’re tired of waiting. I think Jonah unlocked the pool yard and left the hotel door open so that Wally could get in. I don’t think it was intended as a distraction or anything like that. I think they deliberately let Wally out in hopes that something awful would happen or almost happen, and then the hotel would have to be shut down. The best thing that could happen for them is to get rid of everyone else, all the potential witnesses, and then focus on driving Horace over the edge.”
“This is a lot of supposition,” Nick said. But there was a crazy logic to it. And Perry was absolutely right about the value of the land Angel’s Rest sat on. People had committed murder for a lot less. In this case, they didn’t even have to commit murder. Just get poor old Horace locked away forever and have themselves appointed his trustees. Sissy had more than once offered the opinion that Horace was mentally unbalanced.
“It’s the reason for those stupid skeleton costumes and why they didn’t really make sense in the context of Horace’s movies. Because they weren’t the choice of an obsessed fan. They were the choice of someone who wanted Horace to talk about getting attacked by skeletons with swords. I’ll bet you anything that Sissy and Jonah hit on the idea of using Bennie and his friends when they were working around the hotel for Enzo.”
“Okay, slow down,” Nick said. There was a hell of a lot to process in all that.
“And,” Perry added grimly, “I bet Bennie got the idea all on his own to sneak in and see what he could steal because he was already familiar with the place.”
Nick tried to remember if there had been any clue that Sissy recognized Bennie. And yes, she had sort of hemmed and hawed about whether she knew him. Which was smart in the event that Bennie was connected to Enzo—which was apparently what had happened.
“It’s all separate, but it’s all connected,” Perry finished triumphantly.
“Listen to me,” Nick said. “Have you shared this theory with Horace?”
“Not yet, no.”
“Don’t. Not tonight. Don’t tell him tonight. And don’t confront the Nevins on your own. Don’t give any hint that you suspect what you suspect. We’ll talk to them together tomorrow. Okay? And if it looks like your theory is correct—and you’ve already got me more than halfway convinced—I’ll take this to Detective Camarillo. Fair enough?”
“Yes.”
“Also”—Nick sucked in a long breath—“I apologize for being a jackass earlier.”
Perry made a small amused sound. “Apology accepted.”
“Of course you wouldn’t go back on your word. And I shouldn’t have pressured you to.”
“You’re just worried about me. I know.” The cheerful confidence shook Nick. He couldn’t stand the thought of doing anything to damage that.
“It’s true. You’re the most important thing in the world to me.”
“It’s the same for me,” Perry said. “So be careful tonight. Don’t get in the way of any jealous husbands or wives.”
“I won’t. And on that note, it might be a good idea if you stayed the night with Horace. Just to be on the safe side.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Perry said, surprisingly. “I don’t think the Nevins are killers, but they probably didn’t start out as the kind of people who bullied and abused elders either.”
The door of Room 206 opened.
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” Nick said, and clicked off.
* * * * *
Dinner was strained.
Enzo stayed in his room, mourning the loss of Wally. Ami arrived home and announced to the astonishment of everyone she was packing and would be moving in with Ned as soon as they could find a place together. Wynne was dining out with friends. Gilda was attending a Halloween séance. Maybe unsurprisingly, Horace was gloomy and preoccupied, picking at his food and drinking too much wine. Only the Nevins seemed eerily normal as they consumed the lion’s share of the previous night’s leftovers and chatted about the remarkable events of the day as if it had all happened to people on TV.
Knowing about them what he was sure he did, Perry found it difficult to make table talk, but it seemed the Nevins needed no one but each other to keep their little party going.
“Do you get trick-or-treaters?” Perry asked when there was finally a lull in the conversation.
“No,” Horace said.
“Angel’s Rest is too far for any child to walk to,” Sissy said. “We’ve had the gardens vandalized a few times on Halloween night.” She smiled at Jonah, who smiled back at her.
All at once Perry knew what they reminded him of. Vampires. He resolved to lock himself and Horace in for the night as soon as humanly possible.
But once dinner was finally over and they were locked in for the night, the hours dragged.
Horace continued to drink and grow more and more morose as he brooded about the past and his relationship with Troy, who he still believed was the one sending him those terrible letters.
Listening to him, Perry began to wonder uncomfortably if Horace actually would be relieved to learn Troy was not still obsessed with him—because Horace was clearly still obsessed with Troy.
It was pretty depressing. They seemed to have really loved each other at one time—they certainly looked very happy in all those photos in Horace’s picture albums. It was sad to think how love could slowly, inexorably be chipped away at until nothing was left. A good reminder to make sure to pay attention to the details of his relationship with Nick. Not that he was worried. Nick was a detail-oriented guy.
By eleven o’clock, Perry was tired—he had not had much sleep the night before—and counting the minutes until Horace crashed. Not that he was looking forward to sleeping on the dusty couch under the glassy gaze of the creepy dolls, but anything was preferable to hearing another word about Troy.
Far from getting sleepy, as the hours passed, Horace seemed to grow more energized.
Maybe the word was manic?
Eventually, Horace hit on the idea of getting out a projector and watching old home movies.
“It’s kind of late,” Perry said doubtfully. He could think of nothing he would rather do less than watch Horace’s home movies. Unless it was watch Horace’s theatrically produced movies.
“I never sleep on Halloween,” Horace said.
Which was when Perry learned there was something he’d rather do less than watch home movies, and that was go find the projector and reels of film.
“Enzo put them in the east tower,” Horace said. “I told him I never wanted to see them again, so he stored them where I would never have to.”
Wouldn’t destroying the films have guaranteed never having to see them again? But okay, unsurprisingly, Horace had changed his mind about that—which Enzo had likely anticipated.
“Will I be able to find them easily?” Perry asked.
“Oh, you don’t need to find them,” Horace said in surprise. “I’ll get Enzo to bring them down to us.”
Perry glanced at the clock in the dining room. Even if dragging Enzo out of bed at nearly midnight to fetch and carry for Horace was normal procedure, he did not want to risk another blowup between Horace and his former bodyguard. Plus, Enzo was truly distraught over Wally’s departure. It seemed needlessly unkind to intrude on that.
“It’s okay. I’ll go,” Perry said. “Will I need keys or anything?”
“You don’t want to be wandering around the place at midnight,” Horace protested. “Believe me, I know what I’m talking about when I say it’s damned spooky over in that wing at night. We’ll just send Enzo.”
Perry laughed. “No, it’s fine. I’ll do it.” He added hopefully, “Unless you think maybe you might want to go to sleep?”
“No, I won’t sleep.” Horace was adamant.
Perry sighed. “Okay then. But you’ve got to promise to keep the door locked until I’m back. Don’t open it to anyone but me. Promise?”
Horace put up his hand. “My word as an officer and a gentleman.”
“Uh, okay. Well, I’m holding you to it,” Perry said, and took the ring of keys Horace handed over.
“They’re all the way over in the east tower,” Horace said. “Did I tell you that already? I’m not sure if you should use the elevator on that side. It’s not maintained like the one over here. The emergency lights should be on, though. It’s the little stairway off the eighth floor.”
“Okay, got it.” Perry stepped into the gloomy hallway, waited until Horace turned all the locks, and then set off toward the elevator.
There were lights on when he reached the ground floor, but they were dim and mostly seemed to serve as the best method of casting macabre shadows against the walls and ceiling. It was deadly quiet. No lamps shone beneath any door all down the main hallway, so it looked like everyone who was home had gone to bed.
Perry crossed the empty, echoing marble foyer with its intimidating columns, cobwebbed light fixtures, and painted ceiling, annoyed with himself when he jumped at the unexpected sight of a zombie standing behind a large and very dead potted plant.
He reached a pair of interior French doors. They were supposed to be locked, but when he tried the door handle, they opened soundlessly. Someone was keeping those hinges well-oiled. Interesting.
Guided by the emergency lights, he went through another smaller lobby and past a gift shop that appeared to have been in the process of being turned into a museum—it was kind of unlikely the row of shrunken heads in the window had been part of the original display.
He passed the ornate antique elevator, which was chained off in any case, and walked on, uneasily conscious of how loud the whisper of his rubber soles sounded in the dusty silence.
Thankfully, Horace’s gruesome movie props had not made it past the gift shop. This part of the hotel felt menacing enough without ghoulish embellishments. Although, frankly, Perry was impatient with himself for reacting so strongly to the atmosphere. Imagine Nick getting freaked out by a few spiderwebs and poor lighting? Ridiculous.
No question, it did feel weird to be moving around this part of the hotel alone at night, and instinctively he walked softly and stuck to the shadows, feeling—irrationally—that he was being watched.
He came to the large staircase, the twin of the one in the west wing, and started up. Each time a floorboard squeaked, he flinched. The sound seemed so loud. He reached the first landing and heard something scampering down the hall away from him. Rats, very likely.
Why had he agreed to this again?
He started up the next flight of stairs. On the fourth level, the lights were completely out, and he had to talk himself into not giving up and going back down. He got control of his nerves and felt his way up the bannister to the fifth floor, where the emergency lights were back on again. Even that bit of dim radiance cheered him considerably, and he took the next three flights at a decent clip, despite the fact that his chest was starting to feel tight and scratchy.
When he reached the eighth floor, he stared down the corridor of dusty carpet and shredded wallpaper. He could see the moon shining brightly through an oriel window at the end of the hall. To the left of the window was a narrow white door.
Perry’s heart began to thump against his breastbone in something close to panic.
He did not want to walk down that hall.
He did not want to open that door.
He did not want to climb the stairs to that tower room.
Which was idiotic.
I-D-I-O-T-I-C.
This was not instinct. This was irrational fear. And he was allowing it to drown out his common sense.
“Snap out of it!” he murmured, and then threw an uneasy look over his shoulder. The inky nothingness of the stairwell below him made him feel slightly dizzy.
He would get the projector and a couple of reels of film, go back down, and count the hours until Nick arrived and they could talk to Horace about the Nevins together.
Perry forced himself to start down the hallway. It seemed a mile long before he reached the white door. He tried the handle. It was locked. He had to use the flashlight app on his phone to see where to insert the key. He turned the knob, and the door opened with a hideous screech of hinges.
He had to go up another four narrow steps and unlock a shorter, bullet-shaped door. The door stuck. He had to put his shoulder against it, and then it popped open with a higher-pitched screech than the previous set of hinges.
Despite the cold night air blowing through the broken windows, the smell was ghastly. A crazy mix of gasoline and chicken coop. The darkness was utter and absolute—and, to his stricken horror, alive.