Usher's Passing (60 page)

"No." His voice snapped through the air. "I don't know what's in there. I won't take you with me."

Raven's stomach was knotted at the prospect of entering the Lodge; under any other circumstances, she would have leaped at the opportunity to penetrate the Usher world. Now, the unknown both terrified and tantalized her. "I
know
what's in the Lodge," she replied. "Answers. To your questions, and to mine. If you want a ride up Briartop, you'll have to take me the rest of the way, too."

I could make her do as I please, New thought. I can keep her out of the Lodge, if I want to.

"I deserve to know," she said firmly, distracting him from his thoughts. "If you want to go in, we'd better get ourselves some good lights from the hardware store, a couple of those big lanterns that won't go out if they're dropped. And waterproof, too, from the look of those clouds." She stood up and put the strap of the camera case around her shoulder. "Well?" she asked.

New decided he'd let her think he'd take her in, and then he'd send her back to Foxton once they got up the mountain. He could not take the responsibility of protecting her from whatever waited in the Lodge.

"How about it?" Raven prompted.

He nodded, sliding his hand into his pocket to touch the tape. "All right. Let's go."

A JAGGED SPEAR OF LIGHTNING FLASHED OVER THE MOUNTAINS AS
Rix pulled the Thunderbird up in front of Wheeler Dunstan's house. In the air was the chlorine odor of ozone, and dust whirled up from a distant field.

Rix walked up the front steps and pressed the door buzzer. He carried the notebook and the newspaper account of Cynthia Usher's death under his arm. As he waited, Rix glanced uneasily down Dunstan's gravel driveway. He'd passed a brown van that was pulled off the road, about twenty yards from the entrance to the driveway, and he recalled seeing the same van a few days before. Was Dunstan's house being watched? he wondered, scanning the woods. If so, whoever it was had seen him in a highly visible Usher vehicle. Another concern nagged at him as well. When he'd gone out to the garage, he'd seen that Katt's car was missing. Had she gone to Asheville to score more heroin? Boone's Ferrari had been gone, too, but Rix figured he was sleeping off a bad night at the country club. He pressed the buzzer again, then turned to watch the woods at his back. Anyone spying certainly had a clear view of him.

"Who is it?" Dunstan asked from the other side of the door.

"Rix Usher."

Locks clicked open. Dunstan, the corncob pipe clamped firmly between his teeth, guided his chair backward to allow Rix entry. Rix stepped in and closed the door behind him.

"Lock it," Dunstan said, and Rix did. "Sorry it took me so long to get up here. I been workin' since way before daylight." He looked strained, with dark circles beneath his eyes. He glanced at the items Rix held. "What've you got?"

"First this." Rix handed him the fragile newspaper pages. "It's an account of Cynthia's death in Chicago."

Dunstan took his chair into the parlor, where the light was better, and Rix followed. The last red embers of a fire glowed brightly in the hearth. "Okay," he said when he'd finished reading, "this clears up one question. What about the scepter?"

Rix sat down and told him the story that Edwin had related. Dunstan listened intently, blue whorls of smoke curling above his head. When Rix had finished, Dunstan's flinty stare was impassive. "I need documents to prove all that," he said.

"Edwin says the clippings are in the Lodge's library."

"Don't do me much good there. Can you get 'em for me?"

"Edwin might be able to. I'll ask him." He offered Dunstan the black notebook. "I wanted you to look at this, too."

He opened it and slowly paged through it, his brow furrowing. "This come from the Lodge's library? What's all this figurin' mean?"

"I hoped you'd be able to tell me."

"Nope. Sorry. What're these drawin's here?" He tapped the page of sketches.

"I think they're clock pendulums. But why they're in that book, and what they mean, I don't know."

"Ludlow was always interested in clocks," Dunstan mused. "Kept 'em around him all the time. Could be this is one of his notebooks, but I can't make any sense out of this arithmetic or the music notes." He placed the book on his lap and looked up at Rix. "You know that Ludlow was an inventor. Supposedly he was always workin' on somethin' down in that workshop of his in the Lodge. Could be this is one of his projects."

"You mean a weapon of some kind?"

"Who can say? I've heard that visitors to Usherland sometimes saw sparks jumpin' off those lightnin' rods on the roof. Ludlow locked himself in his workshop for days at a time. There's no tellin' what he was up to, but more than likely it had somethin' to do with the business."

Rix took the notebook back from Dunstan and examined the sketches again.

"If it's a weapon," Dunstan said, "what would
music
have to do with it?"

"I don't know," Rix replied—but he was already forming a theory. Shann had been a musical prodigy. The Usher Concerto had affected people in a way that drove them to suicide like lemmings. When Ludlow had gone to visit her in New Orleans, had he been trying to tap into Shann's musical ability for the Pendulum project? Was that why he'd wanted her to renounce the convent and return to Usherland? There was no way to find out unless he learned what Pendulum was. "Yesterday," Rix said, "you mentioned another question you have about my family. You said it was an important question. I'd like to hear it."

Dunstan rolled his chair to the hearth and used a poker to probe at the remaining bits of charred wood. Then he returned the poker to its stand with the other fireplace tools and paused thoughtfully before answering. He swung the chair around to face Rix. "I saw Walen before your grandfather died. He was handsome, full of energy. Looked like he could take on the world with one hand tied behind his back." He struck a match and relit his pipe. "A month after Erik died, Walen's limo had a flat tire a block away from the
Democrat
office. I moseyed out to take a look, while Edwin Bodane used a pay phone to call for another car. I got one glimpse of Walen before he pulled the curtain across his window." He looked long and hard at Rix. "It wasn't the same man."

Rix frowned. "What do you mean? It wasn't Walen?"

"Oh, it was Walen, all right. But an old, broken-down Walen. I'll never forget his eyes—he looked like he'd had a visit from the Devil himself. He had that cane in his hand; I remember that, too. But I've never seen such a change in a man in so short a time."

"I suppose Erik's death affected him."

"Why should it? From what I understand, Walen wasn't a doting son. Now listen to this: Erik had a nervous breakdown on the night of Ludlow's death. It was during one of Erik's fancy parties. Ludlow called him up to the Quiet Room. A couple of hours later, some of the guests heard hell breakin' loose in Erik's study. They got in and found Erik havin' a fit—smashin' furniture, throwin' things against the walls. It took four or five men to hold him down till somebody could call a doctor. Then Erik locked himself away for a month." Dunstan lifted his eyebrows quizzically. "Why?" he asked. "Erik hated Ludlow. Why would Ludlow's death drive him crazy?"

"It shouldn't have," Rix said. "If anything, I'd think Erik would've danced with joy."

"Right. Erik did everything he could to hurry along his father's death. And Walen was no better a son; he wouldn't have lifted a finger to help Erik. Why, then, did both of them react the way they did?"

"I don't know."

"Neither do I. Nor does anybody else. But I'll tell you what I think." Dunstan leaned forward, his eyes bright blue and intense. "Somethin' passed from father to son at the last minute.

Maybe some kind of information, or some responsibility that neither Erik nor Walen figured on. I think Ludlow told Erik somethin' in that Quiet Room, right before he died, that almost drove Erik insane."

"And Erik passed whatever it was to Walen before
he
died?"

"Yes. Which is why Walen's health broke right after his father died. Both Erik and Walen were okay again, with the passage of time. Maybe the shock of it wore off, or they just went on because they had no choice. My question is, what's passed from father to son, just before the patriarch dies?"

"The cane," Rix said. It seemed an obvious answer.

"No, it's more than that. The cane's no surprise. I think this is somethin' that's hidden until the last minute—some responsibility that needs to be carried on from one generation to the next. I've asked Edwin about it, but of course he won't say. He just brings the documents, leaves 'em, and then picks 'em up again when I'm through." He folded his hands before him. "The answer may be in the Lodge's library. I need to find it."

"I can't go into the Lodge, not after what happened to me when I was a boy."

"But you could go in with Edwin, couldn't you? He could take you down to that library."

Rix shrugged. The idea of entering the Lodge, even with Edwin, made his stomach ache with dread. "I don't know. But what would I be looking for?"

"Business records. Property titles. Anything on Hudson Usher. Maybe something about the ancestors in Wales. Aram's marriage to Shann's mother, in San Francisco. He met her when he went there to find his Aunt Madeline, against Hudson's strict orders. Maybe documents on the Pennsylvania estate, and Roderick's death. It's supposed to be an Usher museum down there, and if there's an answer to the question in any written form—that's most likely where it'll be."

Rix ran his hand over the notebook's moldy cover. From outside, the boom of thunder sounded nearer. If he did find the courage to enter the Lodge again, he told himself, it would have to be for a damned good reason. "I want to see your manuscript now," he said.

"Not yet. I'll show it to you when you bring me what I want to see."

Rix looked up into the other man's stem, set expression. He realized suddenly, with a twist of anger in his guts, that Wheeler Dunstan was playing with him, using him as an errand boy with no intention of letting him share in the book.
"Now,"
Rix demanded. "I've already risked enough for you. I could search through that library for a year and never find what you're looking for! If my father finds out what I'm doing, he'll—"

"Disinherit you?" Dunstan asked slyly. "I thought you had no interest in the business."

Rix winced inwardly at the sarcasm in Dunstan's voice, and now he damned himself for ever getting involved with the man. Even if he did hope, deep in his soul, that he might get a sizable chunk of the Usher fortune, he'd be finished if the house was being watched. He had to salvage something out of the wreckage! "Now you listen to me," he said coldly. "I've proven to you that I can help you write this book. I think I deserve to read the manuscript."

"No. I'm not letting anyone see it until it's finished."

"You don't know what I've put on the line by being here, damn it!" Rix rose angrily from his chair. "I'm not working for
you
!
If you want me to go in the Lodge and do your dirty work for you, you're going to have to show me what you've written already! I won't risk anything more until I see the manuscript for myself!"

Dunstan opened his mouth to speak again—and then his face seemed to freeze, his eyes glazing over as if he were staring right through Rix. One hand slowly came up and took the pipe from between his teeth. And in a strange, eerily emotionless voice, Dunstan said, "I won't show my book to anyone."

"There won't be a book worth publishing if you don't let me help you!" Rix snapped. "Who's going to bring you documents after Edwin leaves?"

Dunstan's face remained masklike. "I won't show my book to anyone," he repeated.

Rix was angry enough to strike him, but the man seemed to be in some kind of trance. What the hell's wrong with him? Rix thought. Raven had never seen the manuscript, either. Why not? What was Dunstan trying to conceal? Rix glanced at Dunstan's shirt pocket, where he kept his office key with the little typewriter charm on it. Rix walked purposefully toward the man, who seemed not to even acknowledge his presence, then stepped quickly behind the chair and thrust his hand into Dunstan's pocket. His fingers closed around the typewriter charm—but as he brought his hand out, Dunstan suddenly gripped it with a strength that almost crushed Rix's knuckles. Rix's hand opened, and the key ring hit the armrest and fell to the floor. Before