Out For Blood 35

Larry and Brenda had been on the road for almost three hours when they turned left onto Constitution drive and then right into Lilac Lane. Although Larry had insisted he do all the driving, Brenda was now at the wheel and had been for the last fifty miles or so. Larry was snoring loudly in the passenger seat when Brenda pulled up outside Celia Brontroses’ address. The so called psychic.

The house stood alone on top of a hill and Brenda had parked the car outside a huge set of steel gates, beyond the gates and down a long drive soldiered by Willow trees you could just see a small part of the house, the rest was hidden by large Oak trees.

Next to the gate stood a short post holding an intercom system, to the left of that high up on the stone gatepost was a CCTV camera pointing towards the intercom. At the end of the road just in front of the car was an almost sheer drop into Greenview lake, the last house they passed coming up the hill was about a half mile back.

It was only 6.30am when they arrived so Brenda thought she would leave it until 7.00am and enjoy the view of the lake before waking Larry and calling on Miss Brontrose. A name she knew she remembered from somewhere, but still for the life of her she could not pin it down. She quietly got out to stretch her legs, Brenda was nowhere near as tall as Larry and she wondered why on earth he had bought such a small car.

She stood before a low rail looking down onto Greenview Lake, about half a dozen small boats were moored up to a pier, and about the same number were out on the water. Beside the lake was a car-park containing four cars and one bus, the sky overhead was dull, and looking straight ahead towards the west Brenda could see a massive storm on the horizon.

Hearing a car door close she turned to see Larry lighting a cigarette. ‘Those things will be the death of you ya know?’
‘Gotta go sometime Bren,’ he said peering through the steel gates. ‘Big place huh?’
‘Yeah, seems Miss Brontrose may have a dollar or two.’

Larry pushed on the gates even though he knew they would be electronically locked, they shook but not very much. ‘How much do you reckon a place like this costs?’ he said looking up at the stone arch over the gates.
‘Couple o’ mil, maybe three.’ Replied Brenda.

Larry scratched his chin “Columbo” style, and wistled. ‘How would a high-roller like Celia Brontrose come across information about missing girls over a hundred and fifty miles away? And more than a million miles away financially speaking?’

Brenda shrugged. ‘She’s a psychic, remember?’
Larry scoffed. ‘Psychic my ass.’
‘Well how do you explain her knowing about them using chloroform?’
‘Let’s wake her up and find out shall we?’ said Larry flicking away his cigarette butt then pushing the intercom button.

They waited for a minute but nothing happened, he was about to push the button again when a strangely smooth accented voice spoke up. ‘Good morning, this is the Brontrose residence, whom may I ask is visiting at such an early hour?’
Larry looked over at Brenda then bent closer to the post and cleared his throat. ‘Hum, yes… my name is Lawrance Kessler, I’m a private investigator. I believe Miss Brontrose—’ Larry was interrupted by the gate slowly opening. He raised an eyebrow and looked again at Brenda.

‘Please come up to the house Mr Kessler, Miss Brontrose was expecting you.’
‘Hey, she is good!’ Said Brenda smiling.
‘Well… let’s go see how good!’ Said Larry sceptically.

They climbed into the car and Larry drove it the two-hundred yards to the house.
As they pulled up to the front door a red BMW X5 was parked to their right, Brenda stared wide-eyed. ‘Scratch that two or three mil…’ she said. ‘Gotta be at least five.’
‘Guess there’s a lotta dough in the… “Psychic” game huh?’ replied Larry punctuating the air with his fingers.

The house was a large white wooden structure three stories high, with the upper three bedrooms being intergrated into the roof. Below that were four more bedrooms, each with large patio doors and dark green storm shutters leading onto a wood spindled semi-circled balcony. Below this was the ground floor, four large windows also with storm shutters reaching from the floor to the underneath of the balcony.

The front entrance was an eight-foot wide set of double doors painted the same green as the storm shutters, and was situated between the centre two windows. The right wing was a large white consevatory and the left wing was as big as a two story town house in the same décor as the main section.

The garden to the front of the property was in pristine condition, Oak trees were strategically placed to cover most of the house from the road, and Willow trees lined the drive up to the house. Below the porch and spreading around to the sides of the house were dozens of yellow, red and pink Roses all intergrated with blue Irises. And around each of the Oak trees were white and yellow Lillies.

As they climbed out of the car a man of about forty-five opened one of the large green doors and stepped out onto the porch. Larry and Brenda walked up the half dozen steps and Larry introduced them both and asked to see Miss Celia Brontrose.

The man was her Butler/Chauffer/anything else she needed him for, he was around five-feet-ten in height and weighed somewhere in the region of 230 lbs. He had short dark hair and sported a Van Dyke type growth around his mouth. He spoke with an English accent and wore a black suit and the shiniest black shoes Larry had ever seen. Larry thought he looked more like a bodyguard than he did a Butler.

‘Mr Kessler, Miss Wise,’ he said nodding to them in turn. ‘My name is Mason, Please follow me into the morning room.’