Asylum (Asylum, #1)(27)
He fished out a notebook and pen from his backpack, wondering how best to introduce himself.
A simple wicker cross hung in the window of the front door. Dan knocked, suddenly hoarse with nerves, already thinking it had been a mistake to come. Sure, Sal sounded talkative on his website, but would he be so effusive in person? Dan would have to express his own interest in a way that would get him the information he needed.
He knocked again, with more conviction. Finally, he heard a shuffling from inside.
A spotted, craggy face appeared in the window behind the cross, and a second later the door flew open. The scent of cinnamon candles rushed out to meet him. “What are you selling?”
“Selling? Oh! No, nothing . . . I’m from the college,” Dan explained. He gestured clumsily over his shoulder to the hill. “I—I was going to email you, but . . . I’m sorry, I know this is sort of strange, but I found your web page. The one about Brookline? I’m doing a project on it and you seemed like the local expert, so . . .”
Sal stared at him, clearly trying to decide if he was crazy or joking or both.
“Come in,” he finally muttered, disappearing into a dark mudroom. A light came on, showing a shoe rack filled almost exclusively with work boots and lady’s slippers. “So you found my little report on the internet, huh? Good. That’s good. More people oughta know. But I gotta tell you, kid, I don’t much like talking about it. None of us do. I said my piece with that page on the internet, and now the only time I want to talk about it is to get that hell of a place torn down. Course, some bitch up at the college won’t stand for it, says it’s historical!”
“I think you mean Professor Reyes,” Dan said pointedly. “She’s actually planning to run a seminar in the dorm, and then—”
“A dorm? So they’re housing you kids in it now, are they? That’s a real laugh.” Sal shuffled into the kitchen and Dan followed. He had a feeling he would be leaving with a blank notebook. “This is my wife,” Sal was saying. “Don’t mind us, honey. This young man’s from the college, but he’s not staying very long.”
The kitchen was cramped, furnished with cheap laminate cabinets and mauve tiles. Dan ducked his head shyly. “Hello.” He greeted Sal’s wife. She was gaunt, sunken, but Dan saw shadows of a pretty woman gone old and frail. Her thick hair was tied into a bun at her nape and a heavy fringe of bangs covered her forehead. She seemed to be staring at nothing, her hands propped lightly on the island countertop in the middle of the room.
Sal puttered around the island until he found a coffee mug. He checked its contents and then took a big sip. When he glanced back up and saw Dan still standing there, a look of resignation crossed his face. He shuffled over until he was almost right in Dan’s face and said in a voice barely above a whisper, “All right, kid. You get one question. What did you want to know so bad?”
Dan hardly knew where to start. He tried to collect his thoughts into one single question.
Finally, hoping that this one question would lead to many answers, he said, “I just wanted to know more about Dennis Heimline.” Instantly, he knew he’d said something wrong. Sal flinched, and behind him his wife stopped staring at whatever was so interesting over Dan’s shoulder and looked right in his eyes. Dan blundered on. “I, um, well, I was curious about the connection between the last warden and Dennis Heimline, the Sculptor—”
“What did you say your name was?” Sal interrupted, slamming his mug down on the island.
“I d-didn’t,” Dan stammered, taking a step back. “It’s Dan? Dan Crawford?”
It was like a bomb had gone off. Suddenly Sal’s wife was screaming, throwing herself down on the island countertop, swinging her arms, and sending Sal’s mug and a stack of dishes crashing to the floor. Dan leapt back only to have Sal descend on him, his craggy old face red with blotches. “What the hell kind of sick joke are you trying to pull? My wife is ill and you come in here like that, you damned college kids, always so smart, so clever, eh? Not so clever today—get out! Get. Out!”
Dan hardly bothered to turn, backing out as fast as he could without getting tangled up in the shoe rack and the door. The woman’s shrieking followed him onto the stoop. Then Sal was at the door, still shouting, “Get the hell out!” as if Dan wasn’t trying to do exactly that.
He ran. He ran until he reached the hill and the path winding back up to the college. What had just happened? What had he said? How could Dennis Heimline be such a sore subject when Sal himself had written about the guy?
When Dan reached his room, Felix was gone. A note on his dry erase board read simply, “Departed for gymnasium 1600.” Dan rolled his eyes, thinking, Just another Felix Quirk?.
He shrugged off his backpack and flung himself down on his bed. Miserable, he rolled onto his back and shoved the pillow over his face. Class skipped and for what? He was no closer to figuring out the link between the warden, the Sculptor, Brookline, and himself than he had been at the start of the day. And now he had the horrified face of Sal’s wife to add to the list of things haunting him. And her screams . . .
Dan groaned into the pillow. He had to let it go or he’d drive himself crazy over nothing. Sal was just a nutty old bat who hated the college and everything associated with Brookline. He probably grew up in Camford resenting the kids who could afford a higher education. Wasn’t there even a label for that? The townies and the gownies? It wasn’t his fault.