LIFERS Chapter Twenty

Larry and Brenda had been on the road for almost three hours when they turned left onto Constitution Drive and then right onto a dusty uphill trail her map claimed to be Lilac Lane. And although Larry insisted he did all the driving, Brenda had been at the wheel since they took the turning for Lynchburg some fifty miles back, all of which, Larry spent asleep and snoring in the passenger seat.

She slowed the car as the incline levelled-out at the address of Celia Brontrose, a name which didn’t ring too many bells for Brenda where her knowledge of psychics was concerned, but she’d certainly heard it before. She pulled up parallel with a set of steel gates, climbed out, and closed her door with a soft click.

Beyond the gates and down a drive soldiered by Willow trees, she could see a small percentage of the house, the rest obscured by greenery. Above, and on the gate’s right-hand stone pillar, was an intercom system with a CCTV camera positioned to point at the user. And at the end of the road, just in front of the car, was a sheer drop to Greenview Lake, some five hundred feet below. The time was six forty; she’d leave it until seven and enjoy the view of the lake before waking Larry and calling on the psychic.

From the vantage point she had, Brenda could see a dozen boats of varying sizes moored to their jetties with about the same number already out on the water, and on a windless sunny day the view would have been picture-perfect. She pulled the neck of her mac tight against the wind with one hand and tried to hold down flailing hair with the other when she heard the thud of a car door; she turned to see Larry attempting to light a cigarette.

‘Those things will be the death of you,’ she told him.

‘Gotta go sometime, Bren,’ he said, managing a light. He bent, peered through the gates, whistled. ‘Nice place.’

‘Certainly looks it,’ Brenda said, as she walked over. ‘It seems Celia Brontrose may have a dollar or two.’

‘How much do you reckon a place like this retails at?’

She shrugged. ‘Couple o’ mil, maybe three.’

Larry straightened. ‘So how would a high-roller like Celia Brontrose come across information about missing girls who live over a hundred and fifty miles away? And more than a million miles away, financially speaking?’

‘She’s a psychic, Larry.’

‘Phuh, psychic my ass.’

‘So how do you explain her knowing about the chloroform when the girls’ parents’ weren’t even privy to that information?’

‘Three things,’ he said. ‘One; she either knows a cop who can’t keep his big mouth shut. Two; she took an incredibly lucky guess. Or three; there’s something about Celia Brontrose that she wants to keep from us. And my guess would be number three.’

‘Or number four; she really is a psychic.’

‘Well let’s wake her up and find out which one it is, then,’ he said.

He flicked his half-smoked cigarette away and pushed the intercom button, twenty seconds later a smooth, English voice oozed from the speaker. ‘Good morning, this is the Brontrose residence, whom may I ask is visiting at such an early hour?’

Larry looked at Brenda then cleared his throat. ‘Er, Yeah, the name’s Kessler, Lawrence Kessler, I’m a private investigator and I believe─’ Larry was interrupted by the squeak of the gates.

‘Please come up to the house, Mr Kessler. Miss Brontrose has been expecting you.’

‘Oooh, she's good,’ Brenda said. ‘It looks like old number four has the edge.’

Larry shook his head, said nothing.

All along the drive and just beyond the Willow trees, Larry saw lawns that had been mowed both ways and looked like they were finished off with a pair of manicure scissors. Lilies and daffodils grew along the drive’s edge in front of the trees and were so uniform they could have been positioned using a micrometer.

Larry pulled up outside the house next to a red BMW X5 that looked to have just rolled out the showroom. He climbed out then Brenda did.

‘Scratch that two or three mil, Larry,’ she said, ‘gotta be at least five.’

‘Guess there's a lotta dough in the “Psychic game”?’ he said, punctuating the air with his fingers.

The house was a large white-painted wooden structure, three stories high with the upper six windows integrated into the roof, Mansard style. Below them, and leading onto a semi-circled balcony, were another six windows, and beneath the balcony six steps led to a set of double doors situated between two van-sized windows.

As they ascended, a man, Larry guessed around forty-five, opened one of the doors and stepped out. Five-ten, 240 lbs, and most, but not all of it, muscle. His marine cut was so close to his head it was little more than a shadow, and he wore a black suit and shiny black shoes, and had a trimmed growth of ginger that encircled his thin, pale lips.

They reached the top where Larry pulled out a business card as he introduced them both.
The man looked but didn’t take the card. ‘Mr Kessler, Miss Wise,’ he said, nodding to each of them. ‘My name is Mason; please follow me to the Morning Room.’

The hallway was as big as Brenda’s apartment and had the odour of antique books and overused furniture polish. On the walls were three life-size oil paintings of serious-looking men dressed in flamboyant naval uniforms, and clunking away to one side was a Grandfather clock, its hands indicating six-forty-five.

‘May I take your coats?’ Mason said, as they entered the hallway.

He took Larry’s jacket and Brenda’s mac and hung them on a coatstand between the front door and the clock and opened a door to their left taking them into what Larry reckoned was the “Morning Room”, due to its bright yellow and brilliant white walls. Two floor-to-ceiling windows on the left as they entered faced east, and if the sky hadn’t been so overcast, the rising sun would have brightened the room even more. Again, these walls were adorned with oil paintings, this time landscapes, all of them, views of the lake below and the surrounding hillside.

The lower part of the wall facing them was dominated by a large open fireplace, the fire itself not long underway, its flames still in their infancy. To the fire’s right stood a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, its shelves so full it couldn’t manage the addition of an advertising flyer. And along the wall to their right was a polished mahogany table with five framed photographs and a vase of freshly-picked Lilies rsting on it.

‘Miss Brontrose will be down shortly,’ Mason said. ‘Please take a seat.’

‘Thank you,’ they said in unison.

Larry sat in a high-back burgundy leather chair and Brenda chose one of two leather sofas, all of which faced a darkwood coffee table.

‘Can I offer you a beverage while you wait?’

‘Coffee would be good,’ said Larry.

‘And for you, Miss Wise?’

‘Do you have iced tea?’

‘Coming right up.’

Larry pulled a cigarette from its pack. ‘Say, Mason, is there an ashtray I could use?’

Mason stood with his feet together and his hands clasped tight to his sides, and, in a condescending fashion, leaned in and spoke to Larry, slow, meaningful, like he would a mischievous child. ‘I must inform you that Miss Brontrose dislikes the odour of cigarettes, Mr Kessler. And she would very much prefer it if you could refrain from smoking whilst you are in her house.’ At that, he gave them both a courteous nod and left through a door at the back of the room.

‘Oooh …, Larry mocked. ‘“Miss Brontrose dislikes the odour of cigarettes, Mr Kessler.’”

‘Stop it, Larry.’

‘It’s only a cigarette, Bren,’ he said, ramming it back in its pack.

‘And some people don’t like their homes reeking of smoke.’

‘Well my place doesn’t reek.’

She raised one eyebrow. ‘I wouldn’t know about that, Larry, you’ve never actually invited me in.’

Larry rolled his eyes, stood, and began to wander around the room until he found himself at the table with the photographs, three black and white, two colour. One of the black and whites showed a smiling blonde girl of around sixteen or seventeen and what could have been her younger sister of ten or eleven. On one side of the girls was an elderly gent, possibly mid-seventies; on the other side was a woman in a wheelchair around the same age. They were on a jetty by the lake in front of a sail boat. The caption attached to the frame read, “The launching of the Marianna” and displayed a date of forty two years ago.

The next black and white showed the same two pretty girls, one looking around twenty and the other sixteen. This time, the man, who looked a lot older than he did in the first photograph, maybe in his nineties, was sitting in the wheelchair, but the woman wasn’t present. Again it showed a sail boat, and much larger than the first. The caption attached to this frame read, “The launching of the Marianna II” and gave a date of twenty years later. Larry could see the old man had aged according to the dates, but the two girls looked like they’d only aged four or five years from one photo to the next.

He looked at the third and final black and white which showed the Marianna II out on the water, there were no captions attached to the frame, no dates or times, and only one blonde girl on the deck of the boat. The colour photographs were of a party being held in the gardens of the house. A hot summer’s day, smoke rising from a barbecue somewhere behind a crowd of people, no close-ups, just smiles and distant waves to the camera.

Larry had his attention dragged from the photographs by a clock on the fireplace as it chimed, followed swiftly by the Grandfather clock in the hall.

Mason came back through the door as the seventh chime died away. ‘Your drinks,’ he said, placing a tray on the coffee table. ‘Will you be requiring anything else?’

Larry pulled out his packet and opened his mouth to speak when Brenda jumped in.

'No, thank you,’ she said, looking at him.

‘Then I’ll leave you to enjoy your drinks,’ said Mason. ‘Please make yourselves comfortable, Miss Brontrose will be with you momentarily.’ Then he smiled and turned away.

‘Say, Mason,’ Larry called. ‘These photographs with the girls and the boats, what’s with the dates?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t help you with that, Mr Kessler, they were taken during my predecessor’s term of employment. I really know very little about them,’ he said, then bid good-day and left.

Larry called for Brenda to take a look. ‘Check out these dates, Bren,’ he said, pointing to each of the photographs. ‘Do they look like the same girls to you?’

Brenda leaned in. ‘Well I’ll tell you what,’ she said, her eyes flicking from one photo to the other. ‘If they are the same girls I’d like to know what face crème they’re using.’

‘Do you think the dates could be wrong?’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe, but they look like pretty important moments to me, so one thing you’d be sure of getting right would be the dates.’

‘Good morning, Mr Kessler,’ said an elderly voice.

They both straightened and turned.

‘And you must be Miss Wise,’ the woman added.

Larry just stared as she stood in the centre of the room by the coffee table and didn’t find the ability of speach until he felt a solid nudge from Brenda’s elbow.

‘Miss Brontrose?’ he said, a little more incredulous than he’d intended.

Celia Brontrose stood a little less than six feet with a slender and -Larry would have to admit- much younger-looking figure than he’d been expecting to see on an eighty-seven-year-old. Her blonde hair hung below her shoulders and her radiant smooth face, combined with high cheek-bones and a minimum of make-up, made her features belie at least fifty of the years her voice might imply. Her eyes were cobalt-blue with whites so brilliant they almost looked doll-like. She wore a pair of white, calf-length sailing pants, a light-blue V-neck jumper over a yellow polo-shirt, and on her feet she wore white plimsolls.

‘Call me Celia,’ she said. ‘Only Mason and my bank manager call me Miss Brontrose. Please sit, both of you.’

They all sat, Larry again in the high-back chair and Brenda and Celia shared the same sofa. Larry wanted to keep this interview formal; he had no intentions of becoming best friends forever with this woman, no matter how amicable she may be, so he’d stick to calling her Miss Brontrose.

‘Well, Mr Kessler, what can I do for you?’

Larry took a sip of coffee, dark, rich, expensive. ‘Firstly, Miss Brontrose,’ he said, replacing the Bone China cup to its saucer. ‘Mason said you’d been expecting us, and far be it for me to doubt your psychic ability, but how could you know this?’

‘I told Mr Pieroni to keep me informed of any news he might have, regardless of whether or not he’d found what he was looking for. And, as of this moment, he hasn’t, which means he’s either forgotten what I asked or found himself in some kind of trouble. And as he didn’t seem to be the kind of man I would label as scatterbrained, I suspect the latter would be closer the mark. The next logical step; if his business partner is as good as his advertisement suggests, would be for him to arrive on my doorstep asking questions. Hence you.’

Larry drummed the fingers of his right hand on the arm of the chair; he could accept that explanation; like the woman said, it was a logical step. He rested his elbows on his knees and interlocked his fingers as he leaned toward the table; his eyes burning holes in hers.

‘You gave some very specific information to my partner, Miss Brontrose. I’d like to know exactly what it was you told him and how you came by the information in the first place.’

‘I told Mr Pieroni I had a premonition, and, whilst that wasn’t entirely accurate, it was all he needed to know at the time.’

‘What do you mean, “wasn’t entirely accurate”? Are you saying you’re not a psychic? And there never was a premonition?’

Celia smiled. ‘Really, Mr Kessler, I think we both know the true answers to those questions.’

Larry gave Brenda one of his “Well, whadayaknow” looks, then continued. ‘So what did you tell Mr Pieroni?’

‘I told him the name of the town and a possible location in that town of where he might find the missing girls.’

‘And the name of that town?’

‘Martinsville, it’s a small place about two hours south west of here.’

‘And the names of the kidnappers, Miss Brontrose, do you know who they are?’

Celia crossed and re-crossed her legs and plucked at an imaginary spec on her sailing pants.

‘Look, Miss Brontrose, my partner and friend has gone missing because of something you didn’t want to tell him, and Brenda and I have come a long way to find out what that is.’

Celia stood. ‘That question deserves a very complicated answer, Mr Kessler, and one I couldn't give with any true degree of clarity. But before I do attempt to answer it, I have something I need you to see.’

She walked over to the bookcase in the corner of the room and pulled from it a green A4-sized book and placed it on the table then resumed her seat. On the front cover, and written in a very stylish hand, were the words:

Doctor Thomas Martins
Embryonic stem-cell experiments in longevity

‘That journal belonged to my father, Mr Kessler. It was taken without his knowledge by my twin brother, whom, after he passed it on to me, I never saw again.’

Larry picked up the journal and thumbed the pages as Celia unravelled her past and the truth behind Martisville to them. He flicked through, stopping here and there to read the odd passage, and even though he was no Einstein, he came to realise that the author of the journal, Thomas Martins, was the sort of man that Einstein would probably have called a genius. And as half the words ended in either an ology or an ism, he put the journal down to listen to what Celia Brontrose had to say.

‘It was around seventy years ago, at the end of February if my memory serves …’ she began.