Return of the Wolf Man by Jeff Rovin Page B

blazer, “the assessor must see the space firsthand and make his report. I’m sorry, Dr. Cooke. Those are the rules.”
    Caroline stepped around him. She couldn’t deal with the bickering and nitpicking—not now and not here. It was funny. She didn’t feel any of the fear the others seemed to feel. There was just this pervasive sense of —welcoming was the word that came to mind. Like she belonged here. A woman like her aunt didn’t stay alone in a place like this without loving it. And, loving it, she didn’t pass it on to someone unless she sensed that that person would love it too.
    Caroline ran her eyes and then her slender hand over the great iron knocker. She felt the rough surface, the years of erosion—yet the enduring weight of it in her hand. She smiled as she pushed on the door and entered the great foyer.
    Banning spit into the foliage and grabbed his jackhammer. He hoisted it over his shoulder as the men followed her inside.
    The door shut heavily by itself. Pratt turned to the left and flicked a switch, which turned on a large, central chandelier. The four visitors stood quietly in a tight line for a long moment.
    “Oh, I am in love,” Caroline said.
    The young woman breathed deeply through her nose. The scent of garlic was subtle. The castle smelled mostly of age: damp stones, decades of candlewax, and smoky fireplaces. Fine particles of gray soot rose from the large fireplace to the right, stirred by the opening of the door. The cloud of ash hung delicately in the sunlight that shone through the windows.
    Pratt sidled up to Caroline. “It’s strange,” he said. “These smells are so much your aunt that it’s difficult to believe she won’t come sweeping down the staircase and sit behind her writing desk.”
    “Hey,” Banning snapped, “don’t talk like that. Yer givin’ me the shivers.”
    “I wasn’t talking to you,” Pratt replied.
    Caroline pointed to the heavy escritoire located across from the door in the foyer. “That’s her desk over there?”
    Pratt nodded. “Odd place for it, don’t you think?”
    Caroline turned around. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Not if you keep the door open or the fireplace burning. You can look out on the bay, maybe watch the moonlight. See the lighthouse.” Caroline’s eyes moved from the intricate floor tiles to the imposing staircase to the medieval tapestry behind it. “No, Mr. Pratt. This is the perfect place to write the kind of stories she wrote.”
    “Well, it is the showpiece of the castle,” Pratt said. “Sturdy and timeless.” He glanced at Banning and pointed to the left. “You know where the basement is. If you wouldn’t mind getting underway . . .”
    “I wouldn’t mind that at all,” Banning said. He shot Caroline a look. “I was nineteen years old when I came here to close that place up. Not a week has gone by that I haven’t thought about the willies this place gave me.”
    Caroline turned to the left. She faced the large, arched door that was closed on the bricked-up entrance. “You closed the basement up,” she said, “but you have no idea why my great-aunt wanted it sealed?”
    “Not a one, Dr. Cooke. All I remember is that there was a slippery staircase and a lake down there.”
    “A lake?” Caroline asked.
    “Yes’m,” he said. “Fed by the bay through the cove. Maybe it sent up a draft, I dunno. Pratt’s grandad—the sheriff—checked the lake. He didn’t find any bodies or anything, so we also used a little dynamite on the cave feedin’ the lake. Closed that baby right up. Then I blocked this entrance up and that was that.” He glared at Porterhouse. “Of course, my word that it’s empty, the word of a Korean War vet, ain’t good enough for Uncle Sam’s bloodhound here. He’s gotta wreck the wall an’ nose around for hisself.”
    “I have a job to do,” Porterhouse said, removing his sunglasses and tucking them in the outside pocket of his blazer. “And so do you. Are you