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Authors: Bill Pronzini
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in Musket Creek.”
“Nothing but trouble, you mean?”
“You said it, I didn’t.”
He got into the jeep. Fifteen seconds later he was barreling off down the road, trailing dust, headed toward the pines to the west.
I stood staring after him. And wondering, not for the first time in the past two days, if there wasn’t a lot more going on in this business than I’d first thought.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Kerry still hadn’t come back. Between my search of the fire wreckage and my conversation with Robideaux, over an hour had passed since she’d wandered off. I looked over at the ghosts, but there was no sign of her. Now what’s she up to? I wondered. I shed my trenchcoat, locked it and the wax-laden stone cup into the trunk, used a rag to wipe off my hands, and set out looking for her.
She wasn’t anywhere on the south side of the street. I crossed over, went down a weed-choked alleyway between two of the derelicts. The grass was high back there, a field of it extending thirty yards or so to the creek. A railed footbridge spanned the shallow but swift-moving stream; on the other side, a pair of half-obliterated ruts led up one of the hillocks to a collapsed building at its crest—what had once been a church or a schoolhouse, judging from the remains of a belltower. Pieces of machinery, the segments of a sluicebox, and other broken and rusted mining equipment littered the grass on both sides of the creek. Some of it was so badly weathered and busted up that you couldn’t tell what it had been used for.
An irregular path led through the grass from the footbridge and intersected another path that paralleled the rear of the buildings. I got onto the parallel one and went along calling Kerry’s name. She finally answered me from inside one of the ghosts—the two-storied hotel or saloon. The back entrance wasn’t boarded up the way the front was and the door hung open on one hinge; I went inside.
She was standing in the middle of a big, gloomy, high-ceilinged room. Enough sunlight penetrated, through chinks where the wall boards had warped away from the studs, to let me see what the room had to offer. Not much. A balcony ran around three sides at the second-floor level, with three doorways sans doors opening off it on the left side and three more on the right; the balcony sagged badly in places and looked as though it might topple at any time. So did the crooked staircase leaning in one corner down at this level. The floor looked like what was left of a junk shop that had gone out of business. Some old broken chairs and tables; the rusty skeleton of a sheet-iron stove and its piping; the door to a steel safe, circa 1880, with faded gold lettering on it that said Diebold, Norris & Co., Chicago; a native-stone fireplace with most of the stones lying mounded on the hearth; a crudely made hotel reception desk, part of which was hidden by a pigeonhole shelf that had collapsed on top of it; and random piles of dirt and other detritus.
“What’d you do?” I asked Kerry. “Bust in here?”
“No. The back door was ajar. Isn’t this place wonderful?”
“If you like dust, decay, and rats.”
“Rats? There aren’t any rats in here.”
“Want to bet?”
Rats didn’t scare her much, though. She shrugged and said, “Somebody lives in this building.”
“What?”
“Well, maybe not lives here, but spends a lot of time here. That’s how come the back door isn’t boarded up.”
“How did you find this out?”
“The same way you find things out,” she said. “By snooping around. Come on, I’ll show you.”
She led me over behind the hotel desk, to where a closed door was half-concealed by the fallen pigeonhole shelf. “The door’s got an almost-new latch on it,” she said, pointing. “See? That made me curious, so I opened it to see what was inside.”
She opened it again as she spoke and let me see what was inside. It was a room maybe twelve-by-twelve that had probably been built for the hotel
“Nothing but trouble, you mean?”
“You said it, I didn’t.”
He got into the jeep. Fifteen seconds later he was barreling off down the road, trailing dust, headed toward the pines to the west.
I stood staring after him. And wondering, not for the first time in the past two days, if there wasn’t a lot more going on in this business than I’d first thought.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Kerry still hadn’t come back. Between my search of the fire wreckage and my conversation with Robideaux, over an hour had passed since she’d wandered off. I looked over at the ghosts, but there was no sign of her. Now what’s she up to? I wondered. I shed my trenchcoat, locked it and the wax-laden stone cup into the trunk, used a rag to wipe off my hands, and set out looking for her.
She wasn’t anywhere on the south side of the street. I crossed over, went down a weed-choked alleyway between two of the derelicts. The grass was high back there, a field of it extending thirty yards or so to the creek. A railed footbridge spanned the shallow but swift-moving stream; on the other side, a pair of half-obliterated ruts led up one of the hillocks to a collapsed building at its crest—what had once been a church or a schoolhouse, judging from the remains of a belltower. Pieces of machinery, the segments of a sluicebox, and other broken and rusted mining equipment littered the grass on both sides of the creek. Some of it was so badly weathered and busted up that you couldn’t tell what it had been used for.
An irregular path led through the grass from the footbridge and intersected another path that paralleled the rear of the buildings. I got onto the parallel one and went along calling Kerry’s name. She finally answered me from inside one of the ghosts—the two-storied hotel or saloon. The back entrance wasn’t boarded up the way the front was and the door hung open on one hinge; I went inside.
She was standing in the middle of a big, gloomy, high-ceilinged room. Enough sunlight penetrated, through chinks where the wall boards had warped away from the studs, to let me see what the room had to offer. Not much. A balcony ran around three sides at the second-floor level, with three doorways sans doors opening off it on the left side and three more on the right; the balcony sagged badly in places and looked as though it might topple at any time. So did the crooked staircase leaning in one corner down at this level. The floor looked like what was left of a junk shop that had gone out of business. Some old broken chairs and tables; the rusty skeleton of a sheet-iron stove and its piping; the door to a steel safe, circa 1880, with faded gold lettering on it that said Diebold, Norris & Co., Chicago; a native-stone fireplace with most of the stones lying mounded on the hearth; a crudely made hotel reception desk, part of which was hidden by a pigeonhole shelf that had collapsed on top of it; and random piles of dirt and other detritus.
“What’d you do?” I asked Kerry. “Bust in here?”
“No. The back door was ajar. Isn’t this place wonderful?”
“If you like dust, decay, and rats.”
“Rats? There aren’t any rats in here.”
“Want to bet?”
Rats didn’t scare her much, though. She shrugged and said, “Somebody lives in this building.”
“What?”
“Well, maybe not lives here, but spends a lot of time here. That’s how come the back door isn’t boarded up.”
“How did you find this out?”
“The same way you find things out,” she said. “By snooping around. Come on, I’ll show you.”
She led me over behind the hotel desk, to where a closed door was half-concealed by the fallen pigeonhole shelf. “The door’s got an almost-new latch on it,” she said, pointing. “See? That made me curious, so I opened it to see what was inside.”
She opened it again as she spoke and let me see what was inside. It was a room maybe twelve-by-twelve that had probably been built for the hotel
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