Code 61 - Donald Harstad [104]
“Third is a big plus, then?”
“Privacy. I mean, if there was a chance somebody else was going to drop in, you wouldn't be so comfortable with … well, with debasing yourself, actually.” She shrugged. “All I know is that when he took me upstairs, he'd have to get the key from Edie. She didn't like that, not a bit.” She looked at Hester. “I mean, she was worried for me, too, you know, but jealous at the same time? Especially later, when we were doing him on about a fifty-fifty basis.” She sniffed. “No secrets up at Renfield House.”
“Is that the only connection you all have with him?” asked Hester. “Nothing more … oh, I don't know, social? For want of a better term.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Huck, with enthusiasm. “That's just about the best part, really. I mean, we really dine, you know? Full, formal dining, with seven course meals that we prepare. Just like in real Victorian times.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Oh, you bet. Formal attire. Men in black tie, women in their finest.” She smiled. “I'm sure you saw the clothes? And we'd talk, or anyway, Dan would, mostly. About the old days, in Victorian England. Mostly.”
“He'd talk about them like he'd been there then?” I asked.
Huck considered that a moment. “Well, now that I think about it…. Not so much as if he'd been there, but he gave the impression that he had been. I'm not being very clear, am I?”
“Not sure,” I said.
“Then I'm not. He never actually said, I don't think, that he'd like, talked to Emily Brontë, or Lord Byron, or anything that straight out. But,” she said, earnestly, “he gave that impression, without saying it. He'd sort of refer to them, you know? Like they were old friends. But he never said he was actually there.”
I looked at her quizzically.
“Okay, look, he'd say something like 'Like Byron used to say,' but he'd never say 'that's what he said to me.' See?”
“Okay.”
“Now, in private, it was different. Well, with me, I know for sure. Once he told me about a conversation he'd had with a Prime Minister named Gladstone, and he said he'd known the Wyndam sisters.”
“And they were?”
“Gorgeous women at the turn of the century, I think. Maybe in 1910 or so. High London society.”
“And he's about thirty-five or so?” I just thought I'd better interject that.
“That's how old he appears,” said Huck.
“Was Jessica at these dinners, then?” asked Hester, heading us back on track.
“They were only when Jessica was there,” said Huck. “He and she were the Lord and Lady of the house, kind of, and we were their friends invited to dine.” She sighed. “It was great, really great. We'd use the finest china, and light the real candles in the candelabras, and use the good goblets, and got to drink the old wines Jessica keeps in the basement.” She looked wistful. “New Years is always the best.”
“Does Jessica talk about the past?” I asked.
“Oh, sure. But not like Dan. Just asks him questions. Laughs at his answers sometimes. I don't know why she does, but she laughs.”
I thought I might know, but decided not to say anything. Time to get back on track again. “What did you think when you first heard that Edie was dead?” I asked.
“That he'd killed her.”
“Dan, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Deliberately?” from Hester.
“No, I thought he'd fucked up. He used to give us a bit of blood thinner, you know, to retard clotting with the little cuts.” She held up her right hand, palm toward me. “Not with my 'special' cuts, though. No way. Neither of us was ever fucked up enough to try that shit, not those times.” She shook her head. “Christ, I could have bled to death in no time.”
We were all quiet for several seconds, as Hester and I brought our notes up to date.
“A moment ago,” said Hester, “you said something about Melissa and believing Dan was a vampire, something like 'she does now,' or something close to that.”
“Well, yeah,” said Huck. “Sure. I mean, for one thing, we all know one of you shot him and it sure doesn't seem to have affected