Bad Things Read online

  It said: “Don’t trust her. She lies.”

  CHAPTER 13

  You live in a place, and you create it, and in time it may come to seem like a surrogate child—your responsibility and fate, your joy and cross. The older she got, the more Brooke understood this. She considered it once more as she stood at the back of her sitting room, looking down out of the window toward the black velvet of the forest.

  To leave somewhere is hard, especially if claiming that land had already involved upheaval, and hardship, bloody-minded determination of a kind most families dare not hope for in a single generation, much less time after time. It takes strong blood to create somewhere new, to commit a town to life.

  Only after generations of winnowing will it be shown who has held the center, and always will.

  This was something her grandfather had taught her, back in the good old days of her own childhood. Before bad things happened and the flat plains of adulthood widened out. The word he used was omphalos—from the Greek, apparently, meaning “navel.” Put another way, a web. Grandpa only lived to see the toddler steps of the Internet, but he understood its principles ahead of time—far better than those who now frittered their hours buying and bragging and networking with individuals who, were their company genuinely worth having, probably wouldn’t be spending quite so much time alone in front of a computer.

  The truth of the world, as Grandpa taught it, was that everything in it is related, and can be made to pass through the same point. You, yourself. I.

  To illustrate this he would hold up an object at random, anything from a matchbook to a donut. He’d note how the matchbook was constructed of cardboard, in turn made of wood. This led to discussion of trees as a wide and varied species, the manufacture of paper, and its predecessors, and the importance of logging to the settlement of the Pacific Northwest in general and Black Ridge in particular—a business his own father, Daniel, had been instrumental in setting up. He’d move on to what was printed on the matchbook, the colors, and how these might be traditionally used—red for Christmas, black for death. He’d comment on typography, how this locked the design in time and led off down further side roads, from the use of giveaways in commercial environments back to the development of the printing process, and the prehistory of the written word itself.

  Before he even got started on what the matches were actually for, the importance of tobacco to the early colonization of America and its ritual deployment by local tribes prior to that . . . an hour would have passed, and then someone would come into the room, breaking the spell.

  Brooke would look up, blinking, having been pulled so far into the object, unfolded at the center of its interlocking web of relationships, that she had forgotten about being herself.

  You could do it with anything. Donuts led to sugar (growing, refining, importance to the development of Africa and the Caribbean, its chemical nature and allied compounds) and to baking (crucial position of wheat in world markets, genetically modified or otherwise, cultural relevance of unleavened bread), and to the history of the Krispy Kreme corporation (and its retention of a cool 1950s-styled logo, versus companies like Holiday Inn who’d finally drunk the design Kool-Aid and bowed under the yoke of the rectangle . . .).

  At which point her grandpa got up and went over to a drawer where, after a little digging, he pulled out an old matchbook, showing one of the old Holiday Inn signs in Massachusetts, not far from the town where the Robertson family had lived before making the long and pioneering journey out west.

  The circles closed, briefly, before the web quickly started to branch out again—a spider scuttling out over the whole of creation.

  As she got a little older, her grandfather would encourage her to start the process, giving her a nudge only when she temporarily ran out of steam. Once you understand that you’re integrated with everything else, you appreciate there is nothing of irrelevance in the universe.

  That, actually, it is all about you.

  And in all this time, during the many, many hours they spent in this game, he never touched her. She knew he wanted to—and her growing awareness of this, and the fact he never once submitted to the impulse, led to her loving him very much indeed.

  It is impossible to stop yourself feeling things. Feelings are like cats (as he also used to say). You can enjoy them, appreciate them, be annoyed to hell by them—but there ain’t nothing you can actually do about them. Cats and feelings act outside the realm of human control. With the continued application of will, however, you can do (or not do) anything in the world. This she also learned from him, long before she became familiar with charlatans like Aleister Crowley and their adolescent excuses for pandering to mankind’s basest instincts, weary children determinedly playing with their own shit as a way to appall the eternal parent that surrounds us.

  A man’s job is to provide the backbone, not the blood. To be strong, to be iron, the tree in the forest around which everything else grows. Some people do, others organize. Some have power —unfiltered, prone to excess—and others understand how to direct it, to gain advantage through its use.

  The blacksmith makes the sword.

  The knight wields it.

  Grandpa had been a strong man. His father, too. Brooke’s own dad . . . Not so much. He had been nice, of course, but nice does not build walls that stand for two hundred years. The matter that worried Brooke the most in the middle of these nights was the course of the bloodline now. She had forestalled it going to seed, but that wasn’t enough. It was time to set up another meeting on someone’s behalf. Her brother always agreed to try, at least.

  She couldn’t do anything about that right now, however, and so instead she stood and looked out into the forest a little longer, until the difference between her and it shaded away. You live in a place. And once you’ve been there long enough, the place lives in you.

  The doorbell rang eventually, and she heard Clarisse downstairs padding across the hallway to answer it. Then a quiet male voice, receding as he was shown into the sitting room. Time for business.

  Brooke glanced in her mirror as she passed it, and didn’t mind what she saw. Tall, trim, and polished, with thick chestnut hair, clear blue eyes, and the kind of bone structure that has nothing to fear from age. She looked like the kind of woman who haunts boutiques and gallery openings and sits on the board of the local tennis club— as, in fact, she did. Most people are limited in their perception. What they see is all they know—and so to look one way, and yet be another, is the most basic magic of all. Nobody needs to know about the damage inside.

  She took the main staircase down through the house—her house, their house, the house—and across the hallway to the sitting room. Within it, a man sat perched on the edge of one of the good chairs. He wore glasses, and a coat that looked expensive.

  “Richard?”

  He nodded quickly. “Rick. Richard, well, Rick. Yes. I’m a friend of —”

  Brooke cut him off. “I know everything I need to know about you, or you wouldn’t be here.”

  The man blinked, evidently unused to being spoken to in this way by a woman. Other than his wife, presumably. He looked the kind of slick, confident male to whom his partner would have occasion to use blunt words once in a while.

  “Okay. Right. Of course.”

  “What can I do for you, Rick?”

  “I’ve been told,” he said carefully, “that you can make things happen.”

  “Happen?”

  “Make . . . people do things. Change their minds.”

  “Sometimes, yes.”

  He breathed in deeply, eyes dropping away for a moment. Most of them did something like this, on the first occasion, as they considered for the last time whether this was a line they really wanted to cross. “I’ve got a problem,” he said, all in a rush.

  CHAPTER 14

  The next morning was bright and clear—unlike my head, having endured a long night in a bed that appeared to alternate excessive softness and hardness on an inch-by
-inch basis. It had been windy, too, causing branches to move against the back of the motel, scratching along the shingles. A little after three it got so bad that I considered going around there and snapping them off. I lay motionless in the cold and dark trying to summon the will to get out of bed, but drifted into a state somewhere between more-or-less asleep and just-about awake, until eventually the walls of the room grew slowly lighter.

  A shower didn’t make me feel better, nor a long stare in the mirror. It seemed odd not being able to step out of the door straight onto a beach, and I realized for the first time how used I had gotten to my new life. Perhaps you have to try to go home in order to understand it now lies somewhere else. In the Pacific Northwest you’re seldom far from someone willing and able to sell you a cup of decent coffee, and I decided that would have to do instead of surf.

  Five minutes’ walk away I found someone setting up a latte-from-a-van business in a parking lot. I hung and chatted for a while with the thickset guy who ran it, learning little except that my opinion of humankind, though not universally upbeat, remains more positive than some. In the end the man’s views on local politics, gays, and Native Americans just got too depressing and I set off back to the motel.

  On the way I pulled out my phone and listened to the message on it once more, those two sentences, delivered with conviction. I don’t like people leaving that kind of message, whoever the hell they are, and I was no longer sure I’d be leaving town this morning. I called the number back, and kept walking as I heard a phone ring somewhere.

  Finally it picked up.

  “Robertson residence?” The voice was female, deferential, not the one I’d heard before.

  “Sorry, wrong number,” I said.

  I cut the connection. I wasn’t surprised. It was consistent with Ellen recognizing the number when it came up on my screen. But it also suggested that someone had gained access to her cell phone without her knowing. How else would they have got my number from its call records?

  Whatever else might or might not be true about Ellen Robertson, one thing was certain. Someone was fucking with her life. My problem? Not really.

  But.

  As I walked back into the motel parking lot I saw a woman heading out on foot the other way. It took a moment for me to recognize her as the motel owner.

  “Morning,” she said, smiling broadly. “Sleep okay?”

  “Fine,” I said, disconcerted.

  Combined with hair that was now clean and flowing loose over her shoulders, and wearing a cotton dress instead of being stuffed into old jeans and a T-shirt, it was hard to credit her as being the same woman I’d seen the day before. Even her skin looked different, no longer white and dry but tawny and warm-looking, the bridge of her nose stippled with the freckles of the natural redhead.

  “You sure I don’t know you?” she said, head cocked on one side. “I mean, you’re staying in my motel, of course . . .”

  We laughed merrily together.

  “ . . . but I mean, from somewhere else?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “Well, that’s me.” She smiled. “Always getting things mixed up. So—did you decide whether you wanted to stay the second night?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “Depends on a couple things. Do you need to know right now?”

  “Not at all,” she said cheerfully. “Got five people leaving all at once, so you’re good either way. By midday is fine, just so as I can get Courtney to service the room. Number nine, isn’t it?”

  “That’s me. Can I ask you something?”

  “Shoot.”

  “I’ve got an interest in old houses. I heard the Robertson place is quite something.”

  “Well, heck, yes,” she said. “Hazel had the whole place done by that guy, oh, I forget his name, but he was famous. From over east. Wisconsin, maybe?”

  “Hazel?”

  “Gerry Robertson’s first wife.”

  “So you know them? The Robertsons?”

  “Well, everyone does. Was Henry Robertson who first platted out Black Ridge back in the 1870s.”

  “I was wondering about going up there, seeing if they’d let me have a look around. You think that’s likely?”

  She considered. “To be truthful, I doubt it. Gerry might have. Hazel, for sure. She was real proud of it—spent years having the work done, and a lot of money, too. Was only finished five months before she died, that’s the sad thing.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “Car crash. Up on Snoqualmie Pass, two weeks before Christmas ’98. Went off the road and down the escarpment. Didn’t find the car for nearly two days. They reckon she didn’t die straight off, either.” For a moment then there was something in her eyes. Then she smiled again. “But there’s no harm in trying. You know where to go?”

  “Actually, that’s what I was going to ask you.”

  She got straight to giving me directions, in detail, another contrast to the way she’d been the afternoon before. Evidently yesterday had been a bad day. I was distracted in the closing stages of her instructions by the sight of an animal emerging from behind the motel and ambling toward us.

  “That’s one hell of a dog,” I said.

  Marie turned to see, and laughed. “You got that right. Half wolf, I was told, but I’m sure that can’t be. Genetically, I mean. Found him as a puppy, though, and he’s always been as good as gold.”

  The dog drew level and looked up at me. Standing next to his owner, he looked even bigger. Big and gray and quiet, like a thundercloud. “Hey,” I said.

  I have never been a great fan of dogs. This one’s eyes were very dark brown, almost black. He let them rest on me for a moment, then looked away. I felt as though my measure had been taken.

  Marie patted his back affectionately. “Woman living alone, you need something, right?”

  “You bet,” I said. “Well, thank you.”

  “Need anything else, just let me know. And holler when you’ve decided about the extra night.”

  She patted the dog on the back once more, and they strode off together toward the road.

  Fifteen minutes later I drew up outside iron gates that stood a little way off Route 903, halfway between Black Ridge and the turnoff to our old house. It was not yet nine o’clock. The coffee and walk to fetch it had helped a little, but I still felt only about three-quarters awake. I got out and went to press the buzzer on the left side of the gates. After a time a male voice answered.

  “Who is it?”

  “My name’s Ted Wilson,” I said. “I—”

  “What do you want?”

  I went through the same spiel I’d used on Marie back at the motel. There was a long pause, and then a whirring sound as the gates started to open.

  “Come up,” the voice said.

  I left the car and walked up the drive. This led to a wide, grassy area surrounding an ornamental pond, around which were positioned two sturdy but attractive houses, painted white, in something like Georgian Revival style—and another that was more of a glorified cottage. The pond was free of leaves from the trees overhanging it, and the grass had been recently mown. Even the pebbles on the drive looked as if they had been selected and arranged for consistency of size and color.

  I headed straight for the biggest of the houses, stepped up onto the porch, and rang the doorbell. Almost immediately it was opened by a thin woman in late middle age, wearing an apron.

  I followed her into a wide hallway, at which point she smiled wanly and disappeared through a side door. I stood waiting for something like ten minutes, looking at the pictures on the walls.

  When I finally heard footsteps coming down the staircase behind me, I was standing in front of a cream wooden panel on which a short section of a poem had been painted in a flowing calligraphic script.

  I turned to see a man of about my own age, maybe a couple of years younger, and sixty pounds heavier. Wearing an expensive pair of chinos, white button-down shirt, and a V-neck sweater in sage gre
en, he looked like he’d been given an interior decorator’s advice on how to dress to best suit his surroundings.

  He looked me up and down, and appeared not to feel the same way about me.

  “Cory Robertson,” he said, offering his hand, which was soft and warm. “So you’re an architecture fan?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How did you come to hear about the house?”

  “The woman who runs the motel I’m staying in,” I said. “I mentioned I was interested in old buildings, and she asked if I’d heard about the Robertson house. Or houses, I guess. So I thought I’d come up, see if there was any chance of getting a look around.”

  “Is this a professional interest?”

  “Oh no,” I said. “The feature in the Digest back in ’97 was pretty thorough. My interest is purely personal.”

  He gave me a brief tour. I saw a house that was large, well kept, and to which someone had made a number of coherent and unshowy additions. Five minutes in an Internet café on the way out of town had given me enough background on the property to sound like I understood what I was seeing, and to drop the name of the architect in question.

  The upstairs was arranged as two separate wings on either side of a wide landing. Ellen had mentioned that Gerry’s children lived here, using the plural. Presumably Cory had a sibling who lived in the half he did not show me. Cory’s portion was neat and trim, the only evidence of personality being a few framed group pictures of him and similarly patrician buddies in thick jackets and orange hunting caps, standing with postcoital grins over dead examples of God’s handiwork. One of the men looked a little familiar.

  We went back out to the landing. The window there allowed a partial view of the property at the sides, revealing a covered swimming pool and tennis courts—and the start of the forest behind. From here it was also evident that all of the blinds in the dwelling on the other side of the ornamental pond were drawn.

  “There was work done on the other house, too?”