Crackpot Palace (29 page)

“Where?” asked Stan.

Groot took out his cigarettes and put one in his mouth. He flipped the lighter open and sparked it. Instead of lighting the butt, though, he held the flame aloft, toward the wall. “Right here,” he said.

The flame illuminated a small painting Stan hadn't previously noticed. He stood and leaned in close to the picture, careful not to let Groot set his tie on fire. It was a portrait of a young woman with long black hair, wearing a white gown. She stood on an oddly shaped boulder that had a profile like a face, an outcropping of a nose. She and her perch glowed, as if standing in moonlight, against a black background darker than her hair and sparsely dotted with stars. The lighter went out, but a moment later Groot managed to revive the flame. “The smile, Coroner,” he said.

No matter how many times Stan looked away and then back at the painted face, he saw his Alina, exactly as she'd looked on the autopsy table. “It's her,” he said.

Groot closed the lighter and slipped it back in his coat pocket.

“You know why no one knows her?” asked Groot.

Stan sat and shook his head.

“I found a date in the bottom-right-hand corner. 1896.”

“She looks the same after almost forty years?”

Groot took a sip of his beer. “The whole thing's cocked up,” he said.

“Does the bartender know who did the painting?”

“She said it's always been here, as long as she can remember. This place was a bar for quite a while before Prohibition, and even in the dry years it masqueraded as a restaurant with a speakeasy in the basement. What I need to find out is who lived here when it was a residence, but that might be hard to come by.”

“You've got to find some old-timers,” said Stan.

Groot nodded.

The detective took the painting off the wall and carried it in two hands to the bar. Stan followed him. “I got to confiscate this as evidence,” he said to the bartender.

“No one's gonna miss it,” she said. “I'm probably the only one who knows it's there.”

“I'll return it to you when the investigation is complete,” said Groot. “Do you know anybody in town who might be familiar with local history, going back a ways?”

The bartender grabbed a coaster and a pencil. As she wrote, she said, “Try this guy. Joe Venner. He's old as dirt, but he's got a good memory. Still comes in here on the days he can get his body out of bed. I'll call him and tell him you're coming over. He'll be glad for the company.” She handed the cardboard circle to the detective. He shifted the painting under one arm, said, “Thanks,” and looked at the address.

Out in the parking lot, Groot said to Stan, “Did I hear her describe me as ‘stout'?”

“Yeah. ‘Stout fella,' ” said Stan.

Groot spat. “You want to go talk to this guy?”

“The old man?”

“We'll show him the painting.”

They took Groot's Model B. Ten minutes later, they were in a furnished room over a delicatessen, sitting at a table with the venerable Joe Venner, an obviously shrunken man, curled like an autumn leaf. He wore a moth-eaten cardigan over a flannel shirt and sipped at a pint of Overholt. Stan noticed that the man's glasses were even thicker in the frame and lenses than Cynthia's. The space was cramped beneath slanted ceilings of exposed wood. There was one small window at knee height that lit a patch of floor. The old man had a bed, a desk, a bookcase, and a trunk used as a dresser. There was a single bare bulb suspended from a cord overhead.

“What do you want to know?” asked Venner.

“Can you tell us who this is?” said Groot, holding up the painting. “The picture is dated 1896.” Setting it down in front of Venner, he said, “What about the girl? Do you remember her?”

The old man winced, tilted his glasses an inch downward, and stared at the portrait of the woman on the rock. He touched a trembling finger to his lips and then shook it at the painting. “I don't know who she is,” he said.

“Do you know any local artist who might have painted it?” asked Groot.

“I don't know shit about art,” said Venner. “I worked every day of my life till I couldn't work anymore, first in the fields, then in the loom. The novels I read have pictures on the covers. That's what I know about art.”

“Okay,” said the detective. “Thanks for your time.” He reached forward to lift the painting off the table.

“Not so fast,” said the old man, putting a hand on Groot's right forearm. “The big rock in the picture is a real place. I remember it from when I was a kid.” Venner went silent for a time, dredging his memory.

Stan asked, “Do you remember where?”

The old man nodded. “It's in the woods halfway between here and Verruk. Nobody lives out that way, so the rock's probably still there. Some people called it the Wish Head and some called it the Witch Head, depending on what side of the Susquehanna you lived on. I went there a couple of times with my parents. We walked for miles over fields and through the woods to get to it. People came from all around to climb up on the head. There was a place for your first foot in the groove of stone that was the chin of the face. There was a place to hold on in the right eye, and the nose was like a platform. You were supposed to get up there on top, and this part I can't remember for sure. But it was either that you made a wish, or you prayed to God, something along those lines.”

“If you wished up there, it came true?” asked Groot.

Venner laughed and sipped at his bottle. He nodded. “I suppose that was the idea. People said it was ‘ground magic,' like it comes up out of the earth through the head.”

“Do you remember what you wished for?” asked Stan.

“Only the one of them. I must have been ten or eleven.”

“Did it come true?” asked Groot.

“Hell no, I wished I'd never get old,” said Venner.

Stan let out a laugh.

“I whispered my wish to my father that night before going to bed. I didn't understand then why
he
laughed,” said the old man.

“There's young and then there's young,” said Groot. “You're young in the head, Mr. Venner.”

“A very sharp recall,” said Stan.

“You two don't know yet,” he said. “When you get old, you think more about the past than about what you did five minutes ago. Time changes.”

“We're gonna go out to the Wish Head, can you draw us a map?”

I
t was midafternoon, the temperature had dropped and the sky had grown darker. A strong wind blew leaves across the field in the woods. Positioned in the very center of the open expanse in the trees, as if consciously placed there, was a flat-topped granite behemoth that really did have the contours of a human head. It took no stretch of the imagination to see that, nor to read the expression it wore, one of subtle contempt. Groot stood face-to-face with the boulder, jotting notes in a pad.

“What are you writing?” asked Stan. “It's a boulder.”

“My impressions,” said the detective.

“What have you got so far?”

“Big gray rock,” said Groot.

“Do you feel any ground magic?” asked Stan.

The detective cocked his head as if listening for it. Stan looked back from the center of the field at the woods. A gust of wind brought the first drops of rain.

“Maybe,” said Groot.

“I know what you mean,” said Stan. “I've seen enough. Let's get out of here.”

“Hold on a minute,” said Groot. “We're not done yet.”

“I was afraid you'd say that,” said Stan.

“I'm too old and too fat. By the time I made it up there, I'd have to wish for my last breath.”

“You're talking to a man with a fake foot.”

“Think about how wonderful it is up there.”

“I'm afraid of heights.”

“You can make a wish,” said the detective.

“Oh, shit,” said Stan and took off his jacket and necktie and handed them to Groot. As he approached the stone face, he tried to remember what Venner had said about climbing it. He immediately found the groove in the lips of the old frowning face and secured his good foot. He hoisted himself up against the rock and was able to grab the depression in the eyehole. From there it was a mad scrabble upward.

“Very athletic,” called Groot when Stan reached the nose.

Working to catch his breath, Stan said, “If I get struck by lightning, tell Cynthia I love her.”

“Will do,” said the detective.

Stan turned toward the forehead. “This is crazy,” he said, and then went into a crouch. A second later, he sprang upward against the hard rock and grabbed for the edge of the boulder's flat top. He managed to get a handhold, and then swung his leg up over the ledge. From there, he used his arms to pull himself forward onto the crown of the head.

Groot applauded.

Stan stood up and, a little dizzy from the height, stepped away from the edge. He gazed out across the field and felt the wind and a light rain on his face. “Make a wish,” he heard from below.

“If it comes true, you might not be there when I come down,” Stan called back. He looked up into the dark sky. “A wish,” he whispered, and thought about what he wanted. The first idea he came to was to pray for Cynthia to marry him. But just as quickly came the thought, “What if it came true?” That's when he hit upon something more practical. He closed his eyes, raised his hands out at his sides, and made his plea to the powers of the earth that the ghost pain in his foot be exorcized and leave him forever. Doubt ruled his mind, but somewhere in one of its hidden corners existed the anticipation that he'd feel something, a twitch of electricity in his joints, a fluttering of the heart. What he felt, after giving it two solid minutes, was nothing. He opened his eyes and realized the rain was falling steadily now.

“How goes it?” called the detective.

“Less than magical,” said Stan, who lowered himself to his knees and crawled back to the edge.

“Watch your step,” said Groot as Stan dangled off the nose, trying to achieve a foothold in the lips.

“There,” said Stan, finally anchoring himself in the groove. As he let his weight down, his dress shoe slipped on the wet rock and he fell backward onto the ground.

“What did you wish for?” asked Groot, helping him up.

Stan stood, his white shirt and trousers marked with dirt, and arched his back. “I'll tell you if it comes true,” he said.

The detective handed him his jacket and tie. “Did anything happen up there?”

“Yeah, I banged my knees a dozen times and got cuts all over my hands.”

“But ground magic?” said Groot as he took out his notebook.

By the time they made it back through the woods, and to the car, darkness had fallen and the rain had become a downpour. On the return to Hekston, the radio played quietly, and the wipers beat beneath the music. The detective drove slowly through the storm. “Deer all over the road this time of year,” he said.

“I know,” said Stan. “Take your time.”

“We did a lot today,” said Groot. “But really, at the end of it all, I've got nothing but a big rock.”

“You've got the painting,” said Stan.

“That has to be a coincidence.”

“The fact that it's the spitting image of a young woman in the icebox in the basement of Midian General or that
you
found it?”

“I don't like it,” said the detective. “Any of it.”

From that point on, with the exception of Groot singing along to the radio—“Heaven, I'm in heaven”—they drove the rest of the distance to Hekston in silence.

There were quite a few cars in the parking lot, and the Windemere glowed from within. Groot pulled up behind Stan's car. The rain had slowed to a drizzle.

“Okay, Coroner,” he said. “That's enough for one day.”

“That's plenty for me,” said Stan.

He opened the door, and before he could say good night, the detective said, “Wait, I want you to take the painting.”

“Why?”

Groot reached into the backseat, grabbed the picture by the frame, and lifted it into the front. “Go ahead. Take it over to the hospital tomorrow and take a look at it with her there. I want to make sure what we're seeing is what we're seeing.”

Stan touched the painting and for an instant felt the loneliness of the dark back booth where they'd found it. He got out of the car. “Driving home from Hekston with this thing in the backseat. Jeez, I'd rather climb the rock again,” he said.

“That's what I was thinking,” said the detective and hit the gas. The sudden velocity slammed the door shut, and the car traveled a graceful arc through the parking lot, spitting gravel in its wake.

The moment Groot was gone, Stan felt Hekston's dark spirit closing in. He clasped the painting hard under his right arm and made for his car. As he walked, memories of the Obalan case came back in brief flashes. Before getting in, he stowed the picture in the trunk to avoid any possibility of it appearing in his rearview mirror during the trip. Pulling out of the parking lot, he headed up the street toward the highway turnoff, his mind buzzing like one of Madrigal's mills, weaving strands of the Wish Head, Alina, Joe Venner, the painting, scenes from that long-ago night with de Vries into a snarled and snarling tapestry. It was hard to concentrate, and he traveled slowly until he reached the town limits. The rain began to fall in earnest, and he flicked on the wipers. Once he was over the town line, his thoughts calmed a little and he picked up speed.

There was no moon and the long stretch of highway through the woods was pitch black. Stan hadn't seen another set of headlights for miles. He thought about his wish made standing atop the boulder. He remembered the rain on his face and the rush of the wind. The scene was vivid in his mind when a six-point buck stepped, seemingly from out of nowhere, into the beams of the headlights. He was stunned. The creature was fewer than twenty yards away and was staring directly at the oncoming car. The light gleamed in its enormous eyes. Stan jammed the brake pedal with his ivory foot before his good one was even off the gas and cut the wheel to the right with both hands. The car went into a skid, the back end hurtling toward the animal. He braced for impact, but it never came. Instead, the car snaked off onto the shoulder of the highway, over a small rise and down into a hollow ringed by oaks where it rolled to a smooth stop. The branches overhead blocked the rain. With the exception of Stan's heavy breathing, it was perfectly silent and perfectly dark.