Dean Koontz - Whispers

To the best of Joshua's knowledge, no one had been in the cliff house for five years, not since the day that Bruno had moved out. The tramway was well-maintained, even though the only person who rode it was Gilbert Ulman, a mechanic employed to keep Shade Tree Vineyards' trucks and farm equipment in good shape; Gil also had the job of regularly inspecting and repairing the aerial tramway system, which required only a couple of hours a month. Tomorrow, or Friday at the latest, Joshua would have to take the cable car to the top of the cliff and open the house, every door and window, so that it could air out before the art appraisers arrived from Los Angeles and San Francisco on Saturday morning.

At the moment, Joshua was not the least bit interested in Leo Frye's isolated Victorian redoubt; his business was at Bruno's more modern and considerably more accessible house. As he drew near the end of the road that led to the winery's public parking lot, he turned left, onto an extremely narrow driveway that struck south through the sun-splashed vineyards. Vines crowded both sides of the cracked, raggedy-edged blacktop. The pavement led him down one hill, across a shallow glen, up another slope, and ended two hundred yards south of the winery, in a clearing, where Bruno's house stood with vineyards on all sides. It was a large, single-story, ranch-style, redwood and fieldstone structure shaded by one of the nine mammoth oak trees that dotted the huge property and gave the Frye company its name.

Joshua got out of the car and walked to the front door of the house. There were only a few high white clouds against the electric-blue sky. The air flowing down from the piney heights of the Mayacamas was crisp and fresh.

He unlocked the door, stepped inside, and stood in the foyer for a moment, listening. He wasn't sure what he expected to hear.

Maybe footsteps.

Or Bruno Frye's voice.

But there was only silence.

He went from one end of the house to the other in order to get to Frye's study. The decor was proof that Bruno had acquired Katherine's obsessive compulsion to collect and hoard beautiful things. On some walls, so many fine paintings were hung so close together that their frames touched, and no single piece could claim the eye in that exquisite riot of shape and color. Display cases stood everywhere, filled with art glass and bronze sculpture and crystal paperweights and pre-Columbian statuary. Every room contained far too much furniture, but each piece was a matchless example of its period and style. In the huge study, there were five or six hundred rare books, many of them limited editions that had been bound in leather; and there were a few dozen perfect little scrimshaw figures in a display case; and there were six terribly expensive and flawless crystal balls, one as small as an orange, one as large as a basketball, the others in various sizes between.

Joshua pulled back the drapes at the window, letting in a little light, switched on a brass lamp, and sat in a modern spring-backed office chair behind an enormous 18th century English desk. From a jacket pocket he withdrew the strange letter that he had found in the safe-deposit box at the First Pacific United Bank. It was actually just a Xerox; Warren Sackett, the FBI agent, insisted on keeping the original. Joshua unfolded the copy and propped it up where he could see it. He turned to the low typing stand that was beside the desk, pulled it over his lap, rolled a clean sheet of paper into the typewriter, and quickly tapped out the first sentence of the letter.

My mother, Katherine Anne Frye, died five years ago, but she keeps coming back to life in new bodies.

He held the Xerox copy next to the sample and compared them. The type was the same. In both versions, the loop of the lower case "e" was completely filled in with ink because the keys hadn't been properly cleaned in quite a while. In both, the loop of the lower case "a" was partially occluded, and the lower case "d" printed slightly higher than any of the other characters. The letter had been typed in Bruno Frye's study, on Bruno Frye's machine.

The look-alike, the man who had impersonated Frye in that San Francisco bank last Thursday, apparently possessed a key to the house. But how had he gotten it? The most obvious answer was that Bruno had given it to him, which meant that the man was an employee, a hired double.

Joshua leaned back in the chair and stared at the Xerox of the letter, and other questions exploded like fireworks in his mind. Why had Bruno felt it necessary to hire a double? Where had he found such a remarkable look-alike? How long ago did the double start to work for him? Doing what? And how often had he, Joshua, spoken to this doppelganger, thinking the man was really Frye? Probably more than once. Perhaps more often than he'd spoken with the real Bruno. There was no way of knowing. Had the double been here, in the house, Thursday morning, when Bruno had died in Los Angeles? Most likely. After all, this was where he had typed the letter that he'd put in the safe-deposit box, so this must be where he had heard the news. But how had he learned about the death so quickly? Bruno's body had been found next to a public telephone.... Was it possible that Bruno's last act had been to call home and talk to his double? Yes. Possible. Even probable. The telephone company's records would have to be checked. But what had those two men said to each other as the one died? Could they conceivably share the same psychosis, the belief that Katherine had come back from the grave?

Joshua shuddered.

He folded the letter, returned it to his coat pocket.

For the first time, he realized how gloomy these rooms were--overstuffed with furniture and expensive ornaments, windows covered by heavy drapes, floors carpeted in dark colors. Suddenly, the place seemed far more isolated than Leo's clifftop retreat.

A noise. In another room.

Joshua froze as he was walking around the desk. He waited, listened. "Imagination," he said, trying to reassure himself.

He walked swiftly through the house to the front door, and he found that the noise had, indeed, been imaginary. He wasn't attacked. Nevertheless, when he stepped outside, closed the door, and locked it, he sighed with relief.

In the car, on his way to his office in St. Helena, he thought of more questions. Who actually had died in Los Angeles last week--Frye or his look-alike? Which of them had been at the First Pacific United Bank on Thursday--the real man or the imitation? Until he knew the answer to that, how could he settle the estate? He had countless questions but damned few answers.

When he parked behind his office a few minutes later, he realized that he would have to give serious consideration to Mrs. Willis's advice. Bruno Frye's grave might have to be opened to determine exactly who was buried in it.

***

Tony and Hilary landed in Napa, rented a car, and arrived at the headquarters of the Napa County Sheriff's Department by 4:20 Wednesday afternoon. The place was not somnolent like the county sheriff's offices you saw on television. A couple of young deputies and a pair of industrious clerical workers were busy with files and paperwork.

The sheriff's secretary-receptionist sat at a large metal desk, identified by a name plaque in front of her typewriter: MARSHA PELETRINO. She was a starched-looking woman with severe features, but her voice was soft, silky, and sexy. Likewise, her smile was far more pleasant and inviting than Hilary had expected.

When Marsha Peletrino opened the door between the reception area and Peter Laurenski's private office and announced that Tony and Hilary wanted to see him, Laurenski knew immediately who they were, and he didn't attempt to avoid them, as they thought he might. He came out of his office and awkwardly shook their hands. He seemed embarrassed. Clearly, he wasn't looking forward to explaining why he had provided a phony alibi for Bruno Frye last Wednesday night, but in spite of his unconcealed discomfort, he invited Tony and Hilary in for a chat.