Henry looked interested. "You and the killer had a chat before he croaked?"
"Guys like that have to brag," Fallon explained. "Guess he wanted to impress me."
"Uh-huh." Henry grew thoughtful. "And after he finished with his bragging, he had his heart attack. Hell of a coincidence."
"It happens," Fallon said.
"Nope," Henry said. "No coincidences. Not when it comes to anything that came out of that vault."
Isabella moved to stand beside Fallon. "We understand that Walker sees things through his own private prism, but please don't tell us that you really believe that aliens from another galaxy visited Scargill Cove and left some baggage behind."
"Not aliens," Henry said. "They told us they worked for a small research company, but everyone around here knew that was probably a cover. The black-ops folks use a lot of private contractors when they want to keep a low profile."
"Right," Isabella said. "Everyone knows that."
Fallon winced, but he did not comment.
Henry contemplated her, and then he studied Fallon for a few seconds. Isabella could see him making a decision.
"You two are locals now," Henry said. "You've got a right to know what happened here twenty-two years ago. Come on inside. Vera is making coffee. Tea for you, Isabella. We'll tell you what we know, but I gotta warn you up front, it isn't a whole lot."
11
Walker trooped into the lodge and took a seat on a window bench. He wrapped his arms around his waist and rocked quietly.
Isabella scooped a pile of books off the cushion of an old-fashioned, padded leather armchair and sat down. Fallon grabbed one of the two wooden chairs at the small dining table, reversed it and sat down astride it. He put the clock, still covered in the blanket, on the floor beside his left boot and folded his arms on the back of the chair.
The interior of the lodge reminded him of his own office or at least the way it had looked until Isabella had swept in and taken charge. Every available surface was cluttered with books, magazines and printouts. There were a computer and a printer on the dining room table.
A fire burned in the big fireplace. Two rows of framed portraits hung on the wall above the mantel. Each featured a young man or woman. Some were in caps and gowns. Others wore military uniforms. One of the women stood, smiling proudly, in the doorway of a restaurant. Fallon knew that the name of the restaurant was her own.
Over the decades a number of runaways and homeless kids had wandered into Scargill Cove. Most did not hang around for long, but those who did were quietly taken in, sheltered and educated. Vera and Henry were the town's unofficial schoolmasters. The framed photographs were portraits of the Cove's graduates.
Out of the corner of his eye, Fallon saw Isabella glance briefly at the top page of a ream-thick stack of paper positioned on the arm of her chair. Her eyes widened a little and then she smiled. He was coming to know that particular smile. It meant that she had just solved some small mystery.
He winked. She laughed.
Vera, a good-looking, strong-boned, full-bodied woman in her midfifties came out of the kitchen carrying four mugs by the handles. Her graying-brown hair was tied back in a ponytail. She wore a long, loose-fitting dress of green and purple that fell to her ankles. Faded tattoos peeked out from beneath the sleeves of the dress. In spite of the chill of the day, she had a pair of flip-flops on her feet.
"Hello, Isabella, Fallon," she said, her voice pleasantly husky. "Nice to see you both. You, too, Walker."
She made no comment about the strangeness of seeing Walker indoors.
Isabella tapped the printout sitting on the arm of the chair. "You are Vera Hastings, the writer, aren't you? You do the suspense series featuring the vampire and the witch. I love those books."
Vera chuckled. "Thanks. Actually Henry and I are Vera Hastings. He does the vampire. I do the witch."
"Those novels are terrific," Isabella enthused. "I loved the one in which the vampire had to drink the witch's blood because he was dying, and her blood made him drunk."
Fallon decided it was time to step in and regain control of the conversation. "About the clock."
"The clock?" Vera echoed.
"The one in the blanket," Fallon said.
Walker jittered. "It came from the vault."
With a worried expression, Vera studied the blanket-covered clock next to Fallon's boot. "You're right, Walker. Whatever is under that blanket must have come from the vault."
Walker rocked harder. "You can feel it. Like me."
"Yes," Vera said. She set the mugs on the table. "Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later, wasn't it? We always knew that someday whatever is in that vault would cause more trouble."
Henry came out of the kitchen, a pot of coffee in one meaty hand, a pot of tea in the other. "We just never got around to figuring out what we'd do about it when the trouble came down."
"Because we didn't have any great ideas," Vera said. She looked at Fallon. "Have you told anyone else in town about finding that . . . thing, whatever it is, under the blanket?"
"Not yet," Fallon said. "Walker sensed it while I was taking it upstairs to my office. He made it clear that we needed to talk to you and Henry right away. I figured he knew what he was talking about."
"Yes," she said. "When it comes to objects in the vault, Walker knows at least as much as any of us. Maybe more."
Henry filled the mugs. Vera handed them around. Walker refused his, sticking to the no-charity code. Vera left the coffee sitting on the windowsill nearby. After a while, Walker picked up the mug as if he'd just happened to find it the way he found the other life necessities that came his way.
Fallon leaned down and raised the blanket.
Vera and Henry looked at the clock. They both appeared baffled.
"It's just a clock," Henry said, frowning.
"It's actually a clockwork device that generates energy that interferes with light waves in the visible spectrum," Fallon said. "Wind it up and when it starts to tick everything goes dark for a radius of several yards."
Henry whistled softly. "Son of a bitch." He looked up suddenly, eyes narrowed. "Looks old."
"It is old," Fallon said. "Late nineteenth century."
Vera eyed the clock. "Are you telling us that it was designed and built in the Victorian era?"
"Yes," Fallon said.
Henry shook his head. "What you're describing is cutting-edge technology. If it came out of the vault, it must have been designed and built in a high-tech lab." He glanced uneasily at Vera. "Like the other things down there."