Evan stepped forward to the other man and shook hands. Wendal smiled, his mouth open slightly, revealing a small stub of grizzled muscle where his tongue should be. Revulsion tried to make him yank his hand away, but he steeled himself and pretended that he hadn’t seen it.
“Wendal can’t speak, bit his tongue clean off when he was ten falling down a set of stairs to our basement. He does the thinkin’, and I do the talkin’,” Arnold said.
Evan didn’t know what to say, so he nodded and gestured toward the store. “Is Jacob in?”
“No, that old mick brought his wife over to Wilson Springs this morning. They’ll be shoppin’ and carryin’-on until afternoon, for sure.”
Evan nodded again, noting the irony of Arnold calling Jacob “old.”
“Okay, maybe you can tell him I stopped in? He can give me a call if he’d like.”
“Will do,” Arnold said.
Wendal’s head bobbed.
Evan took a step toward his van, then stopped and turned back to the twins. “You guys wouldn’t know anything about an old grandfather clock that the Prices used to own, would you?”
Wendal’s brow furrowed, crinkling his scalp in a multitude of lines, before he glanced at his brother. Arnold sat back in his chair and took a slow sip of coffee.
“What makes you ask such a question?” he said after swallowing.
Jason’s prior warning of townsfolk and their distrust of outsiders replayed in Evan’s mind. “Just curious, it looks like it could have a history.”
Arnold laughed in a harsh bark. “Yeah, you could say that again.”
“So you know about it?”
Arnold held out an age-spotted hand and tipped it back and forth. “Before our time. It originally belonged to a man named Abel Kluge. Odd fellow, from what I heard, violent sometimes. Lots of rumors floating around about him.” Arnold’s eyes twinkled.
“What kind of rumors?” Evan said, taking his cue.
“He was a clockmaker from Chicago back around the turn of the century. There’s some that say he was one of the best in the world. And there’s others that say there’s reasons for that.”
“Reasons?”
Arnold lowered his voice and leaned forward. “His success was unnaturally quick in the industry, from what I heard, like people couldn’t buy his work fast enough. Almost like he was selling drugs instead of clocks. A friend of my father’s once told us that he heard the man came from a bloodline steeped in the occult.”
“The occult?” Evan asked. “Like witchcraft?”
Arnold shrugged, leaning back into his chair again. “I don’t know about that, but that place he lived in was always dark, in more ways than one. Outsiders tended to stay away from there, people still avoid it like the plague.”
“So he lived close by?”
“Oh sure, retired up here and died in his mansion out on Wicker Road, along with his wife.”
Evan hunched his shoulders as a gust of cool wind came across the lake and ruffled his hair. “They died together? Were they murdered?”
Wendal glanced at his brother, then shifted his eyes to Evan’s. Arnold didn’t seem to notice and shrugged.
“That isn’t entirely clear. Mostly rumors, long time ago, like I said. Anyway, the clock was from the house, and some say it stood in their bedroom. Old man Price bought it quite a while ago during an estate sale.”
“Do you know where I could find out more about this?” The excitement in Evan’s chest hadn’t relented, and he felt a sense of satisfaction at having followed his hunch about the clock.
Arnold smacked his lips, rolling his eyes toward the sky as he did so. “You could try talkin’ to Cecil Fenz. She was tied to the old place somehow or other, I can’t remember exactly now.”
“Cecil Fenz,” Evan said. “Do you think she’d mind me talking to her about it?”
Arnold barked his laugh again. “She minds everyone talkin’ to her about everything. She moved out in the sticks years back, orneriest woman I ever met, and I met a few of ’em.”
Evan smiled and reached out to shake Arnold’s and Wendal’s hands again. “Thank you, you’ve been a big help.”
“What you want with all the questions anyway?” Arnold asked.
“I’m doing a little research for an article. I thought the clock would make a good story.”
“That it would. Just don’t mention me or my brother as a source, we’re too old to get all wrapped up in gossip.”
Evan laughed and waved goodbye. He got in the van and closed the door, shutting off the bite of the wind. After scribbling down the name in his notebook, he did a quick White Pages search on his phone and found a number listed for Cecil Fenz, along with an address.
Listening to the ringing hum on the other end of the line, Evan readied his most charming voice and tried to think of the best way to bring up the subject. A moment later, the line clicked and a woman’s smoky voice answered.
“Hello?”
“Hi, is Cecil Fenz there, please?”
“Who is this?”
Evan grimaced. Right to the point. “My name is Evan Tormer. You don’t know me, but my son and I are staying on the island in the middle of Long Lake, and I came across an old grandfather clock in the basement—”
A snap came from Cecil’s end, and dead air hissed in his ear.
“Hello?”
He frowned and held the phone out, studied it. Raising his eyes, he noticed Arnold and Wendal looking at him, their expressions smug, as if they knew exactly who he’d called and what kind of reception he’d gotten.
“Yeah, okay,” Evan said, starting the van and pulling out of the parking lot.
10
After picking up Shaun from his therapy, they stopped for lunch at a small diner.
In honor of how well he did at the hospital, Evan ordered a banana split for dessert, which they shared. The occupational therapist had been extremely pleased with Shaun’s capabilities and willingness to work.
“You keep doing this good, you can get ice cream every time,” Evan said, helping him with a spoonful of sweets.