Silent Victim - C. E. Lawrence [136]
The house was an 1860s farmhouse, and like many others in the area, it had been modernized, with wings added on over the years. The property was well maintained, with a vegetable garden out back and a rose trellis over an old well that looked as if it was still in use. A fresh coat of white paint on the porch gave the place a cheery, inviting look—though their arrival would be anything but welcome.
On one of the porch columns, next to the front steps, was a sculpture of a Green Man. It was different from both the one at Perkins’s house and the one Ana Watkins owned. Made of plaster, it was larger and even more fierce-looking, and a few actual leaves and twigs had been shoved behind it, so that it looked like they were growing out of its head. Lee tugged on the detective’s sleeve and pointed to it. Butts turned to look, nodded, then drew his revolver and mounted the porch steps, which creaked from age and damp weather.
The front door was open from the inside; only the screen door stood between them and the front hallway. He strode to the front door and yanked the rope attached to the clanger on the old-fashioned dinner bell hanging next to the front door. Its hollow report sent a chill through Lee’s body. Ask not for whom the bell tolls….
“Police—open up!” Butts called out, holding his gun close to his body, the barrel pointing upward. There was no answer. Peering through the screen door, Lee could see no movement inside the house. He strained to hear something—anything—but there was no furtive shuffling, no scurrying footsteps of a fugitive on the lam.
“Police! If you’re in there, open up!” Butts called again, but he was met once again with silence. He looked at Lee and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “No warrant—we’re on shaky ground here. I don’t see a judge buyin’ probable cause. I think we’re stuck.”
They stood contemplating their options as a swarm of gnats lazily circled the far end of the porch. A gentle breeze brought the scent of honeysuckle wafting in from the garden, mixed with the tart green smell of tomato vines and geraniums. In the woods, cicadas began their metallic descending scale, signaling the end of summer.
A faint sound from within the house broke the stillness. It was a gentle rustling, as though a mouse or some other small animal was trying to burrow into a nest and hide. It seemed to come from the other end of the front hall. Lee pressed his face against the screen door and peered down the dark corridor.
“Hey, be careful!” Butts whispered fiercely behind him, but Lee remained where he was, trying to make out the dim figure advancing down the hall toward them. His instincts told him the person, whoever it was, held no threat for them.
“Hello?” he called. The form stopped moving, then crumpled to the floor. He looked at Butts, but the detective’s hand was already on the screen doorknob.
“Now we got probable cause,” the detective said, pushing the door open.
Lee followed Butts into the house. They reached the end of the hall in three or four steps. In front of them was the emaciated figure of a man. He had collapsed onto the floor next to the stairs and was clutching at the banister, trying to heave his wasted body to his feet. With his other hand he clutched wildly at the air, as though trying to reach out for their assistance. He sawed the air frantically, like a broken antenna trying to find a signal.
They reached down and gently helped him to his feet, though the spindly legs appeared unable to support the weight of even his meager body. One on either side of him, they helped him to a chair, setting him down gingerly. He looked elderly, perhaps seventy or so, though it was hard to tell; in his condition, he could have been twenty years younger. Lee figured that he was probably Eric McNamara’s father.
“I’m Detective Butts with the NYPD,” Butts said gently. “And this is Dr. Lee Campbell. Can you tell us where your son is?”
The old man opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out were pitiful, strangled sounds.
At that moment Lee realized