She didn't tell him the details, but Cree was particularly interested in the juncture of hallway and central room, where Lila had first seen the shoe tips, and where Cree herself had seen them. The owner of the shoes had clearly been standing just around that corner, as if pressing himself against the wall.
It took only one measurement to find a deviation: The distance from the corner to the first doorway down the hall was eighteen inches longer than the plan's specifications. The central room proved to be the same amount shorter.
'Oh, hell, of course!' Ronald said. Frowning at himself, he walked along the wall, rapping it with his knuckles. The wall at the corner gave forth a hollower sound, and Ron nodded as if he'd found what he expected. 'Heating and air-conditioning ducts. Daddy put in the furnace in the old larder, that's almost directly below us. This's where the main air duct comes up for the second floor, they'd've needed more room than the thickness of the old wall. So they'd've built out the whole wall another foot or so. See the vents there, and over there? Air-conditioning uses the same ducts.' He gestured toward louvered grates on two of the walls. 'Did a good job of matching the cornice and ceiling paneling, that's why it's not more obvious. Kept the historical appearance.'
Joyce noted the measurements. When they moved on down the hall, they found another deviation immediately: The door to Lila's old bedroom had been moved about two feet to the right, apparently to allow space for ducts between the door and a load-bearing member in the wall. There was no question, from what Lila had described, that the boar-headed man used that corner and these doorways – in exactly their current location – to conceal himself.
The library ghost's period of origination might still be unclear, but this ghost had to be from after 1949. Or else it was a very, very unusual critter of some kind.
'Looks like this tells you something important,' Ron prodded.
'Maybe.'
'So, what – Lila saw something here? What the hell did she see, anyway? Or was it Miz Doctor Black who saw something?'
'Actually, I don't know,' Joyce lied. 'Cree keeps those details confidential. Sorry.'
'You're really not gonna tell me anything? After the yeoman's service I've rendered tonight? Surely I get some little reward!'
Joyce just rolled her eyes and went about setting up the laser level for the second-floor work.
They spent another half hour at it, but she knew they'd gotten what they'd come here for. She was dying to get back to the hotel and tell Cree. Also, the ambivalence she felt about Ron's attention was growing, and it would be nice to get out of here before one of them did or said something awkward. She was glad when she was finally able to put the tools away and roll up the plans again.
Eleven o'clock and still no sign of Cree. Wouldn't she have called if she were going to spend the night at Paul Fitzpatrick's house? How much simpler this would be if Cree would just carry a cell phone. But no, she avoided using them because after listening to Ed yammer about electromagnetic frequencies she was afraid habitual use would affect her brain and impair her sensitivities. Natch. Of course. Leaving her friends and associates with dilemmas like the current one.
Joyce lay propped on the pillows of her bed, surfing through the TV channels. She skipped over innumerable true crime, unsolved mysteries, and autopsy shows and settled for an old Peter Sellers movie. She found an emery board in her purse and began doing her nails.
If only the evening had ended there! she thought. But then the thing on the stairs had to happen. Gawd, of course, Murphy's Law.
They had turned out the lights in the upper central room and Joyce was following Ron down the stairway. She had deliberately not let him carry the toolboxes or the rolled plans for her so as to not invite assumptions or patronizing displays. And as a result she was burdened and couldn't see the stairs as well as she might have. Ron had just reached the floor and she was about three steps above him. He half turned to say something, and at that instant she lost her footing and pitched forward and down. And big handsome Ronald adroitly caught her in his arms.
And as if that wasn't bad enough, she didn't pull away immediately! Ron held her firmly against his broad chest, arms around her, supporting almost her whole weight, and she was so shocked by her fall, by suddenly finding his face so close to hers, by how… interesting his arms and chest and thighs felt pressed against her, that she hesitated. For all of five wordless seconds, probably.
At last she regained her wits enough to pull away. Ron didn't resist, just sort of let his hands trail off her shoulders and hip to show he let go only reluctantly.
'My God, excuse me!' Joyce said. 'God, what a klutz I am!' Completely flustered, like a teenager. She bent to recover the things she'd dropped and held them to her chest as if they'd shield her. 'I'm so sorry!'
'My pleasure, I assure you,' Ron had said. Then he went to the security panel, paused with his hand over the keypad, and said nonchalantly, 'Remind me – what was it ol' Doc Freud said about accidents, again?'
'He also said sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,' she'd rejoined. And then realized that for Ron, that would carry all kinds of suggestive overtones, too.
They'd gotten out the door without further mishaps. Out on the sidewalk, she'd declined his invitation to go out for drinks. 'Some other time, then,' he'd said as a farewell. 'I'll most definitely look forward to it.'
Joyce winced at the memory. She hoped that her own lapses of professionalism wouldn't impede this case in some unforseen way. Cree had described Ron as a womanizer – unnecessarily, because anyone could tell that within the first thirty seconds of meeting him. But he was handsome and rich and he smelled good and this was New Orleans. And though true love was a terrific idea, Joyce had been divorced long enough to know that a good roll in the hay with someone who knew how to roll could be awfully damned terrific, too – in many ways preferable to a 'relationship' and the sticky complications that too often came with. Ron was no doubt a loser, but his confidence in dealing with women probably had some basis in experience. It could come across as smug, if you didn't have comparable confidence yourself. Which Joyce prided herself on having.
So why had she let the encounter fluster her? Maybe because there were other things besides weakness and lust in his eyes – something hidden, something dark and repellent. Dangerous? Maybe. More obviously, she decided, some kind of internal desperation. No, that wasn't quite right. Cree would be better at giving it a name -
Cree! Joyce glanced at the clock radio again and was shocked to find that it was eleven-thirty. She had to be definitive: Would Cree, or would she not, call to let her know where she was? Ordinarily, yes, she would: A, because she wouldn't want Joyce to worry, and B, because tonight in particular Cree would be very interested in the outcome of the architectural work.
Okay, so would Cree, or would she not, call to let her know she was at Paul Fitzpatrick's, either staying very late or spending the night?
This was tougher to answer. Being a considerate person, Cree would probably want to call, but in certain situations the opportunity to do so gracefully might not present itself. Joyce sincerely hoped exactly those situations had arisen tonight.
So the real question, Joyce decided, was: Would Joyce nee Wu formerly Feingold, or would she not, solely on the basis of her current anxiety, call Cree's possible lover's house to make sure she was okay?
She gave it another ten minutes of rising concern and decided that damn straight she would. She dialed information and got the number for Dr. Paul Fitzpatrick, already rehearsing her apologies.
32
The clatter and bump of things falling, the jolt and jar of hitting and rolling, merged with another noise – a harsh banging and rattling that didn't stop when the other noises did. Cree's head lolled dizzily as the geometric pattern of dark and darker above her spun and stabilized and she realized that she was looking up at the open rectangle of the stairwell and the line of the balustrade. She was lying diagonally on the stairs just below the landing. Her breath left her chest as she felt the boar-headed man moving up there, but with the clacking and banging at the door he seemed to withdraw, like a toxic smoke sucked away, inhaled by the house again.
She moved one arm and slid bruisingly down another step, barely catching herself before she tipped and rolled the rest of the way down.
