Devoted(117)
When he returned to the house on Monday morning, after four nights in a superb resort in Pebble Beach, he arrived at seven o’clock, an hour ahead of the staff, as was his policy. He stopped inside the big roll-up door and got out of the BMW that had been provided with his position, and he disarmed the alarm system with the Crestron panel embedded in the wall. As the door rolled down, he parked in that part of the vast garage reserved for employees, separate from the carousels of collectible cars. When he got out of the BMW this time, he heard the distant yet raucous music of forty-six pinball machines, which were housed in the arcade on the same level of the house as the subterranean garage, the movie theater, and the two-lane bowling alley.
Dorian Purcell’s habit, when he spent a weekend here, was to leave Sunday night. On the aboveground floors, when the house was uninhabited, the lights and TVs and music system were programmed to turn off and on in a pattern that suggested to any burglar casing the residence that it was occupied by three or four people. The machines in the arcade were not part of that ruse.
This suggested to Amory Cromwell that Purcell must still be here.
And this deviation from the Great Man’s customary practice further suggested that something might be wrong.
Having had martial arts and weapons training as part of his preparation for his profession, and aware that he was being paid not merely for his expertise but also for his discretion, Cromwell did not at once consider calling the police. The überwealthy paid men like Cromwell also to prevent their follies from becoming public knowledge, at least until those follies became felonies. He went to a gun safe concealed in the cabinetry associated with the mechanic’s shop that was part of the garage, and he obtained a 12-gauge shotgun that fired slugs. He loaded one shell in the breach, three more in the magazine, and dropped two spares in a coat pocket.
In the arcade, he found Dorian Purcell’s body in less than ideal condition. In addition to other evidence of extreme violence and cannibalism, the billionaire’s head was missing.
At this point, Cromwell might have called the police if he had not been a man who recognized a golden opportunity when he saw one.
Shotgun at the ready, he followed a trail of bloody footprints and bits of unthinkable debris, which led upstairs to the library on the main floor.
The man, who didn’t seem to be strictly a man, who appeared to be something out of an H. P. Lovecraft story by way of a Tim Burton movie, was sitting in an aisle between two rows of bookshelves, his back to one set of stacks, his feet to the other. Purcell’s head lay in his lap.
The bizarre intruder had shed his clothes somewhere along the way. Horrid lumps and discolorations covered his pale body. Weeping sores issued gray gossamer filaments that formed webs across parts of him, with radials and spirals sloping up to anchor him to the shelves between which he slumped. These weren’t the elegant and precisely geometric webs of a spider, but were without pattern and as ugly as the grotesque individual whom they partly cocooned.
The intruder was perfectly still. Amory Cromwell assumed that this was a corpse before him, but he nevertheless kept his distance and said, “Sir?”
The man’s head, which faced away from Cromwell, slowly turned until the face came into view.
In spite of the distorted features and the dull eyeshine, like that of a cat at night, enough resemblance remained for Cromwell to inquire, “Mr. Shacket?”
The former CEO of Refine, who was believed to be dead in Utah, formed what perhaps he thought was a smile. He spoke, but his voice was weak, a mutter, and what he said made no sense. The words popped out of him like the numbered balls from an automated bingo hopper. Further diminishing any hope of intelligent communication, Shacket produced, in addition to words, clicks and keenings and chittering noises, like those of insects, and an animal mewling, and a hissing as if a serpent lived in him.
Clearly the man had no remaining strength, no presence of mind, and was dying.
Throughout his career, Cromwell had assiduously protected his clients not just from bad publicity but also from rude intrusions into their privacy by media and others of the hoi polloi. Their dignity and the respect they deserved were uppermost in his mind.
Not so much with Dorian Purcell, especially now that the Great Man was dead.
Cromwell laid his shotgun aside and used his smartphone to video Shacket for two minutes as the pathetic creature muttered senselessly, clicked, chittered, and whimpered not like a man but like an animal with its leg caught in a trap. He took a number of pictures, making sure that he got several clear shots of Purcell’s severed head.
He retrieved the 12-gauge and returned to the arcade, where he photographed the headless corpse and the carnage around it. Then he went through the mansion, photographing its most fabulous, luxurious features, anything that might thrill readers of the worst tabloids and those who viewed the tackiest cable programs.
While in the employ of a family in Boston, Cromwell had made the acquaintance of Vaughn Larkin, who was an attorney as well as a licensed private investigator. Larkin periodically had done work for that family regarding matters involving a son who had a taste for cocaine, porn stars, petty theft, and revolutionary politics.
He called Larkin now, described what he had found, and asked for an informed estimate of the value of the video and photographs in his possession. The number so impressed Cromwell that he hired Larkin as his agent and sent everything to him before calling 911.