John Hart - Iron House

She watched hills rise and fall, shook her head. “It’s a terrible affliction.”

“A violent one?”

“Different people suffer differently.”

“How about Julian?”

“Memory loss. Hallucinations. Muddled thinking. It’s why he still lives at home. Home is safe. Less chance of stress. Less chance of delusions.”

“What kind of delusions?”

“Voices.” Her jaw tightened. “The medicine helps.”

“Does he ever talk about what it feels like?”

“Once, a long time ago. He said the voice hurts, but keeps him strong. He said it props him up, makes him big when he knows he’s small. He was drunk that night, distraught. It sounded pitiful, and he knew it. I think he’s always regretted telling me. Sometimes I catch him looking at me, and he always looks worried. He asked me once if I love him less.”

Michael pictured Hennessey, dead on the bathroom floor. He saw the blade in his throat, squares of black tile etched in red. Julian’s disconnect. “What about stereotypical schizophrenia?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like you see in the movies. Multiple personalities.”

“That’s rare, and overdramatized, a Hollywood inflation that helps no one. The disease is more complicated than that. It has infinite degrees. Julian is confused, but his problems don’t rise to that level.”

“You’re certain of that?”

“I know this disease inside and out.”

The senator called when they were an hour from Asheville. Abigail asked a few questions, then listened for a long time. When she hung up the phone, she said, “Media’s at the gate. It’ll go national soon.”

Michael was not surprised. “What else?”

“Julian’s okay for now. A superior court judge granted a temporary injunction protecting him from police interrogation until he hears evidence from medical experts. They’ve bought a day, maybe two. Cloverdale put him back on antipsychotics.”

“Is that it?”

“They’re still searching the lake.”

Asheville nestles into the Blue Ridge Mountains in the western part of North Carolina, a jewel of a city surrounded by places with names like Bat Cave, Black Mountain and Old Fort. There was culture in Asheville, music and art and money; but there was poverty, too, great swaths of it in the deep mountains that stretched out in all directions. North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee-it didn’t matter. Abigail explained it as they rolled across the city line. “Iron Mountain is forty miles further west, deep in the mountains, three thousand feet higher, close to Tennessee. It’s not much more than an hour’s drive, but may as well be in a different country.”

“A poor part of the state?”

“State lines don’t really mean much down here. Lost Creek, Tennessee. Snake Nation, Georgia. Blackstrap Pass. Hells Hollow. It’s all mountains. It’s all history.”

“You’ve never been back, have you?”

“Iron Mountain?” Abigail shook her head. “No desire to, and no reason. Julian was safe and you were lost.” The road dropped off and Asheville flattened out beneath them. “This part of the world has felt wrong to me ever since.”

They found Ronnie Saints’s house where the Asheville line rubbed against a broad valley at the base of steep mountains. The road was narrow, black and winding. Michael saw small houses with kids’ toys on short grass. Pickup trucks sat in driveways, and American flags flew on short poles. Water flowed fast in the streams and hemlocks rose close to a hundred feet.

“This is somehow not what I expected,” Abigail said.

“Ronnie Saints was a horror story figure from your son’s worst nightmare. No reason to suspect he’d be human.”

They turned onto a short street. The houses were yellow and brick and white with green shutters. Ronnie’s house was the smallest on the street, old but decent, the paint just beginning to crack. A panel van was parked in the driveway, SAINTS ELECTRIC on the side in white letters.

“Looks like the right place.” Michael drove slowly past. He checked the neighbors’ houses, the side yards and parked cars. “That’s his work truck. He must have a second car. That could mean he’s married. No kids’ toys, though. Maybe a roommate.”

“This feels wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know.” She was agitated, hands closed tight. The truck sat like a barrier in the drive. The house was dark and still. “Deep down, something says this is dangerous.” She shook her head. “I can’t place it. It’s like a vibration.”

Michael turned around where the street ended, drove back and parked at the curb. The Mercedes stood out on the narrow street. So far, nobody seemed to care. “Let’s do this.”

He opened his door, and Abigail said, “Michael…”

She looked frightened, pale, and Michael felt a stab of sympathy. “You should probably stay in the car. If the cops in Chatham County find Ronnie and ID the body, they’ll have Asheville PD out here first thing. You’re recognizable. It would be best if no one here sees you. Could be hard to explain back home, senator’s wife rings dead man’s doorbell. You see what I’m saying?”

“Are you sure?”

“Just sit tight.”

Michael closed the door and she locked it. He looked back once, then the house was coming up, a white bungalow with a wide driveway, a covered porch and a single car garage. The gutters were clear of debris. A tall tree grew in a patch of grass near the sidewalk. Michael studied the windows. The truck’s hood was cold when he touched it. Stepping onto the porch, he looked back once, then rang the doorbell.

Nothing.

He rang it again.

A third time.

Michael stepped left and cupped his hands at the window. No crack in the curtains. He listened for a long minute, then he tried the door.

Locked.

Solid oak.

He found the key under a planter.

Abigail saw him check under the mat and on the lintel above the door. She saw him find the key, watched him open the door and slip inside. Her heart hammered for reasons of its own, her breath so short she wondered if she were having a panic attack, if everything had simply become too much. Bodies. Secrets. A broken son.

What the hell?

Sweat rolled beneath her shirt.

Jesus…

She could barely breathe.

Michael felt the lock give. Metal slid over metal and he was inside. He listened for movement, and heard nothing but the rush of air through vents. The room was neat and orderly, with hardwood floors that needed stain, a brick fireplace and furniture that didn’t quite match. On the right, an arched opening led through to a dining room with burgundy walls and better furniture on a cream-colored rug. Ahead, another opening led to a small study. He smelled chicken and cigarette smoke that had not yet had time to fade. His hand found the forty-five at the small of his back. He moved farther into the room, saw a table that could seat four, and shelves with cheap crystal and ceramic ducks. He paused in an archway, and the woman spoke even as he rounded into the room, gun up and tracking right.

“I already called the cops.”

She had both legs pulled up on the broken-down sofa, an eight-inch butcher knife in her fist. She was small-boned and pale, with pretty features and thick, wavy hair. Twenty years old, maybe, with eyes that were deep and afraid. The knife shook. A cardboard shoebox was clenched under her left armpit.

“Anyone else in here?” Michael kept the gun up.

“Cops are coming,” she said, but that was a lie. The weight of her arm had squeezed the shoebox out of shape so the lid gapped. Michael saw bands of cash in the box. Lots of it. She was nowhere near the phone.