The Cornerstone Page 22

“Would you mind if we stopped a little early this afternoon?” Claire checked her watch.

  “Is there somewhere you need to go?” Dr. Patel was curious, as always.

  “You suggested I try to get out more, so I’m meeting some friends for a drink at a pub…a law assistant and a journalist. They make good conversation.”

  “That sounds positive. Are these new friends?” Dr. Patel was making notes.

  Claire wondered how to answer that. In the grand scheme of things, compared to Jackie, for instance, these were definitely new friends. But when you considered she’d known Adelaide and Morris for nearly half a year, maybe their friendship wasn’t that new. “Not so much,” she answered. “I haven’t seen them in awhile, and I’m looking forward to getting back in touch.”

  Siri Patel smiled brightly. “That’s good. I’d like to hear how it goes when we meet next week.”

  Claire nodded. She had a knot in the pit of in her stomach at the thought of what she needed to ask Morris, but she couldn’t move on until she’d made the effort.

  The Janus Theatre was gutted, the site cordoned off with a hastily installed chain-link fence. Claire took in the charred pile of what had once been a city landmark. It looked bombed out, the way the roof and floors had disintegrated and fallen into the basement—all charred timbers and melted glass. A chunk of the two-faced god’s marble profile poked up through the rubble and drifts of ash. Whether it was the smiling face or the tragic one she couldn’t tell.

  Given the all-consuming ferocity of the inferno and the complete destruction of the building, it was agreed by all who’d witnessed it, and the city cleanup crew who’d erected the chain-link safety fence around the ruins, that it was indeed miraculous so few people lost their lives. News reports mentioned that of the more than five hundred people who’d been in the theater that night, a goodly number suffered minor injuries or fire-related damage such as smoke inhalation as they’d fought to exit the building. Of the half dozen who perished in the blaze, one was so badly burned his body could only be identified by the tattoos on one arm. Crossed swords, it had seemed.

  Three others were identified by dental records, and two simply could not be found, but were assumed to have been in the basement when the building collapsed into itself, creating a crater similar to an explosion. Excavations with backhoe and shovel turned up nothing with the tantalizing exception of a single charred motorcycle boot. Of Kit Bayard, impresario and owner of the doomed Janus Theatre, according to the news reports, there was no trace at all, not even the slightest fragment of bone. Attempts to locate next of kin were equally fruitless, as were efforts to find relatives of the missing actor Tom Brennan, the presumed owner of the boot. Brennan’s employer at The Rookery bookstore supplied information from his personnel folder that included a driver’s license number, which turned out to have been issued to a false identity. As far as any official records could prove, the person known to a small circle of acquaintances as Tom Brennan did not exist. Claire thought of that final toast in Doyle’s pub and wished she could cry, but there were no tears for what she felt. She was cold inside.

  “Claire! What’re you doing here?” Footsteps crunched on the sidewalk behind her. Addie’s voice.

  Claire turned. “Same as you, I guess. Just wanted a last look.”

  “There aren’t any presences. They’re all gone, even Kit and Tom.” Her eyes got watery. “Especially Tom, or whoever he was. He’ll always be Tom to me.”

  The desolation in her face was so overwhelming that Claire reached out, in spite of her normal anti-hug tendencies, and pulled Addie close.

  “I know.” There was no way to explain what she knew, but just saying the words carried its own comfort.

  Addie sobbed into her shoulder. “It’s horrible. No remains, no next of kin…no closure. He should at least have a funeral or a memorial or something.” Her shoulders heaved as she wept. Claire had thought those same things, but kept them at a distance for fear they would derail her fragile recovery. She let Addie mourn for them both.

  “Morris’ll think we stood him up. Want to go now?” Claire released Addie and gave her a pat on the shoulder. It was strange, holding and comforting someone other than her mother. Oddly, Claire felt better.

  Addie wiped her face and blew her nose into a Kleenex. “Yeah, let’s go. I feel like it’s important, for Tom’s sake and ours.”

  Claire nodded. “I’ll see you there.” She started walking toward her car and thought how curious it was that neither of them seemed as distraught over the similar vanishing of Kit Bayard. Claire’s thoughts surrounding Bayard were viscerally disturbing and connected to things she’d agreed to herself were dangerous ground as far as rebuilding her mental health went. And the less her shrink knew of screaming banshees and bloody stones the better.

  Claire parked on the side street across from Doyle’s Tavern and saw Addie standing in front of the pub, waiting for her. She hurried across the street and followed Addie through the door, feeling vaguely unmoored. It wasn’t that they were out of place here—it was a cozy spot she might have hung out in by herself if she’d found it on her own. But it was so imprinted with her memory of Tom that it felt strange to be coming here without him.

  Morris sat alone in the round booth where they’d all first gathered that night after rehearsal so long ago…weeks, months? Time seemed to have dilated in her memory. Morris’ nose was buried in a copy of the newspaper he published, savoring his own work, Claire supposed. Her chest felt constricted, tight with unvoiced emotion, but she kept a lid on the sensation. This was therapy, this meeting…closure and moving on. Paul had assured her that facing her fears might be hard, but in the long run it was a good thing.

  Morris looked up as they approached, his expression somber. Something around the eyes, a pinched look, made his gaunt face a study in shades of conflict. Claire remembered when that sharp hawk-nosed profile had been the height of intimidation for her. But not now. They’d all experienced too much.

  “I was thinking you might not show,” he said, folding the newspaper and laying it aside.

  “We owe it to Tom.” With a huge sigh, Addie heaved herself into the booth across from Morris. Claire slid in beside her. They were an odd threesome, unlikely friends, united by loss.

  George the bartender appeared tableside almost before they were seated and settled in. “Is it true? Was that our Tom in the list of people who died in the theater fire up on Highland?”

  Our Tom. Claire flinched. She nodded, not meeting his eyes.

  “A stout in his honor, on my bill,” said Morris.

  Claire gave him a look. Who would’ve thought Morris capable of such a gesture. Maybe they’d all gone through some changes.

  They placed their orders and then sat silent, as if reluctant to acknowledge the evidence of the empty seat beside Morris.

  “I just wish I had something to remember him by.” Addie sniffed and wiped at the corner of her eye.

  “I have something.” Morris reached inside his briefcase and handed her a small hardback book. It looked used—well-used, in fact, with frayed cloth binding and battered dark green cover. “It was the only thing of his left in the garage apartment he rented.”

  Claire was surprised. “You went there?” She could have sworn Morris looked embarrassed, a first as far as she knew.

  He shrugged. “I just wondered if there was anything left behind that would explain who he was. His landlord let me in, told me his few clothes had been given to the Salvation Army. There was nothing but that,” he said, indicating the book.

  Addie opened the cover and Claire could see the Rookery Bookstore stamp on the title page. The page itself appeared to be a facsimile of a much older document, printed in London for The Camden Society, 1852. The full title of the book took up most of the page: The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee, and the Catalogue of his Library of Manuscripts, from the Original Manuscripts in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and Trinity College Library, Cambridge.

  A c
hewing gum wrapper used as a bookmark stuck out about a third of the way into the volume. Addie turned to the entry and placed the book flat on the table so they could all see. There were penciled notes in the margins; whether they were Tom’s, who was to say? One passage had been highlighted with yellow marker. Addie read aloud:

  But Coronzon (for so is the name of that mighty devil), envying man's felicity, began to assail man and so prevailed…man became accursed in the sight of God, and so lost both the garden of Felicity and the judgement of his understanding, but not utterly the favour of God. But he was driven forth (as scriptures record) unto the earth which was covered with brambles. ...Coronzon is the name of that very Serpent of Genesis, also synonymous with the rebellious angel Samael, well-known in Jewish midrashic and kabbalistic writings.

  She looked up. “I don’t get it. Why would Tom be reading this?”

  Morris sipped his ale. “Research for his part in the play, most likely. Actually, I could’ve used it myself. Mephistopheles was a great character to play, especially the way Marlowe wrote him.” A shadow clouded his expression.

  Claire lowered her voice. It was now or never. “I have to ask you...what really happened onstage between you and Tom? You went off the script and just…made stuff up. And then you fainted. Why?”

  Morris’ black eyes held hers for several seconds before he spoke. “I don’t think I have an answer for you, Claire. At least, not one that’s suitable, not to me or to you. Or possibly even you.” He looked at Addie, holding Tom’s book pressed to her chest.

  They waited, and he eventually continued.

  “That whole last act was supercharged. Everyone played their parts to the hilt, and at some point it stopped…being a play.”

  Claire barely dared to breathe. “What do you mean?”

  Morris swirled the amber liquid in his glass. “The stage, the audience, the lights…it all just faded, and I felt like I was Mephistopheles and that man confronting me really was Faustus. We said things to each other that I can’t remember now but I know they were above and beyond the tiny world of the play. The play seemed insignificant at that point. Then it all went black.” His voice trailed off and he sat for a moment, staring into his glass.

  “I knew something was wrong,” Addie said. “When we entered from the wings behind you, you felt…scary…and then Drew whispered to me that you guys were ad-libbing, although I couldn’t imagine why. And then you did that funny thing with your voice, like it was some special sound effects illusion.”

  Morris looked up. “Like I said, there was no theater. It was just me and him, and then he suddenly didn’t look like Tom in costume.”

  Claire’s mouth went dry as she relived the moment with him.

  “For just a second or two, he seemed thinner, paler, with black hair to his shoulders. Then I felt…empty, and the lights went out. I didn’t come to until Claire started shaking me. I didn’t even realize the place was on fire until you were dragging me offstage.” He was looking at her with an expression she found impossible to read.

  They fell silent. Finally Addie said, “Something supernatural happened. We all know it. It was that ghost in the basement, don’t you think?”

  Since they were in a confessional mood, Claire thought about telling what she’d really seen in the basement before she’d bolted for the back exit—how she discovered the resident “ghost” was actually a banshee, how she’d seen the Black Coach of Death driven by the terrifying dullahan of Irish legend, and how she could even think those thoughts without going insane. The confession sat there on the tip of her tongue, waiting to be shared. She opened her mouth, and shut it. Finally she said, “We’ve all been through hell, on some level.”

  Addie looked troubled. “I wonder whatever happened to Danny.”

  “I’m pretty sure he’s dead.” Claire tried not to sound like one of those CSI cops on TV, but it was hard. “I thought about filing a missing persons report on him but finally just decided not to get involved any further.”

  “You think Bayard killed him, don’t you?” Morris asked, without a trace of sarcasm.

  Claire was careful with her answer. “I think he had something to do with Danny’s sudden disappearance. Maybe let him bleed to death or some stupid thing like that, and then hid the body. It’s just a gut feeling. I don’t have any proof. Maybe someday Danny’s bones will be excavated from the theater basement, but I doubt it.”

  They sat, drinks in hand, wrapped in their own thoughts. A full glass of stout sweated a wet circle on the table in front of the empty seat.

  Finally Addie broke the silence. “Who owns the property, anyway?”

  “Kit Bayard,” said Morris. “He bought it when he first came to Atlanta. Bragged to me that he paid cash for it. There’s no next of kin that can be tracked down, or I would have found it when I researched him for the story I wrote up for the paper. Maybe the city will take it over.”

  “The Preservation Society might get involved,” Addie said. “They had some investment in it, I think. Too bad about the building, it was a landmark.” She turned to Claire. “So sorry to hear about your mother. Are you going to stick around?”

  Claire shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’m going to put the house up for sale. It’s in an old, stable neighborhood, and well-preserved Craftsman houses like it don’t go on the market that often, or so I’m told.”

  “Well, I’ll be sorry to see you leave. Where do you want to go?”

  Claire looked out the window at the rain coming down and allowed herself to smile. “Someplace warm and dry.”

  “Egypt. Go sign up for a tour of the Pyramids in the desert.” Morris was smirking, the first sign that afternoon of his old personality. “I have friends at a travel bureau who could get you a good rate.”

  “Now there’s a thought,” said Addie. “Maybe I’ll go with you. I don’t have anything to hold me here.” Her wide eyes were very green.

  “Except a good job,” Claire reminded her. Yet the idea was somehow appealing as she turned it around in her mind and looked at it from all sides. A trip abroad. It could happen. When the house was sold, she’d have money. Her bills would be paid, and she didn’t have anyone who needed looking after except herself.

  “I’ll pay my way. I’m great fun on a trip, and I love to travel. ” Addie was bright-eyed.

  Claire studied Morris and Addie, the wheels in her brain turning. Then she reached across the table and picked up the honorary stout. Mimicking that shrug of Tom’s she would miss forever, she took a swallow and really smiled for the first time in weeks. “Sure. Why not?”

  ~ finis ~