Scavenger Hunt
Whenever anyone asked Angelica San Miguel how her family acquired its vast fortune, she would only laugh and say, "We make people pay." Whatever the source of their wealth, there is no denying that they were one of the oldest and richest families in the world. Angelica, the most celebrated of the clan, was well known for both for her charitable works and her fabulous parties, which were so lavish that no one ever considered turning down an invitation to one.
Her latest revelry was no exception. Ten people were invited to take part in a weekend scavenger hunt that was to be held at a nineteenth-century mansion known as Hawthorne Manor. Located in a remote part of New England, the old house had originally been the home of the late Emily Andrews Hawthorne. A lonely, reclusive widow whose marriage had produced no children, Mrs. Hawthorne filled the mansion with toys. Upon her death, the home became a private museum.
The guest list for the party included an eclectic mix of people: a rock star, a TV evangelist, a heart surgeon, a Hollywood producer, an actress, a fashion model, a bestselling author, a football player, an attorney and a real estate tycoon. All were wealthy, successful, at the top of their respective fields and totally unprepared for what would befall them at Hawthorne Manor.
When the guests arrived on Friday evening, there was no one there to greet them or show them to their rooms. In fact, the only evidence that a party was to be held there was the cold buffet set up on the sideboard and the seating cards placed on the dining table.
"Since there are only ten place settings," the lawyer observed, "I assume Ms. San Miguel won't be joining us until after dinner."
"Why don't we make ourselves at home?" the evangelist suggested. "I for one am starving, and that buffet looks mighty tempting."
"Seating cards? What does it matter where we sit?" complained the model, who was peeved at being placed between the evangelist and the female author; she would much rather be sitting next to the rock star.
"It's not a seating card. It's an envelope," the author said, opening the one bearing her name. "It appears to be instructions for the hunt. 'Enclosed herein is a map and a clue to an item you must find. Said item can be found in the room indicated on the map. If and when you find that item, you will receive a reward.'"
Intrigued by the mysterious incentive, some of the guests decided to start their search immediately. The others, chiefly those whose bodies were still in tune with the time zones in which they lived, chose to get a good night's sleep and begin early the next morning. At 9:20, the guests all left the dining room. Five went directly to their rooms on the second floor. The other five, with maps in hand, headed for various parts of the old house to begin their quest.
Clue: Take a peek.
Robert Kingsford strolled through the dimly lit halls of Hawthorne Manor, giving serious thought to whom he would cast to play the role of William Shakespeare in his upcoming PBS special. Kingsford was one of the most respected filmmakers in television and had already been awarded five Emmys for his documentaries. He was also a family man with a beautiful wife and four children. By the age of forty-two, he had attained success, wealth and love, and he was now enjoying them to the fullest.
As he entered the large exhibit area to which his map led him, the first thing Robert noticed was a six-foot-tall suit of armor standing gallantly in the center of the room. To the right of this medieval warrior was a panoramic display featuring an army of miniature knights defending Camelot where King Arthur and Queen Guinevere were holding court. To the right, Union and Confederate forces were engaged in a scaled-down battle of Bull Run, George Washington fought Cornwallis at Yorktown, Henry V valiantly clashed with the French at Agincourt and Napoleon faced the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo.
At the far end of the room, several items were displayed on a billiards table. Resting on the green felt surface were a turn-of-the-century stereograph, a microscope, a telescope, four kaleidoscopes and other optical instruments geared toward children. Kingsford assumed one of these objects would provide the answer to his clue, so he peeked inside each one, in turn, looking for either another clue or a message to the effect that he had successfully completed the hunt. He found nothing, however.
Then he spotted a View-Master, an updated, mass-produced version of the stereograph. Feeling a sense of nostalgia, Kingsford examined the toy. When he was a boy, he had one like it, on which he viewed three-dimensional scenes of Mount Vesuvius, Hoover Dam and the Fiji Islands or followed the adventures of such cartoon characters as Popeye, Woody Woodpecker and Pinocchio. Although the View-Masters he purchased for his own children were more modern in design and offered reels featuring Barbie, the Lion King and the Rugrats, the general function of the toy remained the same. One need only insert a circular reel into the slot and then look in the eyepiece.
Kingsford raised the toy to his eyes and realized with a shock that the particular reel inside this viewer was far different from any he had seen as a child or that were sold on the market today. This View-Master was apparently not meant to be a child's plaything.
"Old Emily Hawthorne must have been a bit kinky," he chuckled to himself.
Suddenly, the children in the X-rated photo began to move. No longer a static image, the scene in the View-Master became a pornographic video complete with sound! A closeup of the faces of the performers sent a chill down the producer's spine. With a sense of apprehension, he glanced at the window between the two eyepieces and read the caption that appeared there: "Never on a Sunday."
Is this someone's idea of a joke? he wondered.
Kingsford studied the video so intently that he failed to hear danger approach, slowly inching its way toward him. Finally, a squeaky sound like that of a rusty hinge made him turn around. The producer's eyes widened with fear when he saw the metal knight standing in front of him. They opened even wider when the hollow suit of armor plunged its battle-scarred sword through the producer's chest, impaling him on its blade.
Clue: I'll cure your ills.
Dr. Richard Franklin worked his way up from humble beginnings as the son of a Gloucester fisherman to become one of the most prominent surgeons in the country. A graduate of Harvard Medical School, he set up practice in Cambridge and married a woman from one of Boston's finest families. Yet despite what most of his colleagues believed, he had not married Ruth for her money or her social standing. Theirs was a marriage based on love rather than convenience or gain.
As Richard strode toward the west wing of the manor, he regretted coming to the remote locale. Since marrying Ruth, he often found himself pressed for time. It was difficult to manage his thriving medical practice and attend his wife's many social and charitable functions. He certainly did not have time to spend roaming around an old museum playing a silly game.
Another thing that annoyed him about this party was the fact that Ruth had not been invited. Angelica's invitation made it quite clear that no "plus ones" were allowed. Richard was so offended by what he considered a snub to his wife that his immediate reaction was to refuse the invitation, but Ruth insisted he go. If she could not attend one of Angelica's famous parties herself, at least she could get a firsthand account of one from her husband.
Dr. Franklin followed the directions on his map to a large playroom. Its display of costumes was a monument to make-believe. A tot could don an Indian headdress and carry a tomahawk or sport a cowboy hat and boots with spurs and ride a hobby horse. Whether a youngster chose to play policeman, fireman, astronaut or nurse, all the accoutrements were there. In such a room, a child's ability to pretend was limited only by the extent of his or her own imagination.
The surgeon surmised he was to find an item that had something to do with medicine. He was not surprised, then, when he found a toy doctor's kit on one of the shelves. Nor was he surprised that the bag contained a toy stethoscope, thermometer, blood pressure cuff, hypodermic needle, tongue depressor and an assortment of bandages and medicine bottles. What did surprise him, though, was finding a ten-inch-high caduceus. Although the staff with two serpents coiled around its length had long been the symbol of the medical profession, it was an odd thing to put inside a toy doctor's bag.
"What is a kid going to do with this?" he asked, hefting the heavy caduceus in his right hand.
Richard watched with incredulity as the two serpents came to life and slithered off the staff onto his arm. He uttered a curse and threw the caduceus across the room but not before the two serpents sank their poisonous fangs into the veins of his wrist.
As he lay on the floor gasping for breath, Dr. Franklin's final thought was that he was glad his beloved Ruth had not been invited to the party after all.
Clue: It can happen to you when you're young at heart.
Amanda Cook, with a map in one hand and her scavenger hunt clue in the other, was led to—of all places—a library.
An apt location for an author, she mused.
A former English professor, Amanda had written a bestselling novel about an average American family torn apart by the Vietnam War. Lauded by the critics and loved by the reading public, When Johnny Came Home was a well-written, sensitive story that earned her a Pulitzer Prize and netted her millions in royalties. After her book was released, she gave lectures, attended book signings, appeared on radio and TV talk shows and repeatedly promised her publishers that she was making progress on her next novel.
Once the writer entered the library, she crumpled up the papers she was carrying and stuffed them into her sweater pocket. She was familiar with the lyrics of the old Frank Sinatra song that claimed "Fairy tales can come true. It can happen to you if you're young at heart." Accordingly, she decided to limit her search to children's literature. As she scanned the titles on the shelves, Amanda was dismayed to discover that all the books in this library were children's books and that names such as Hans Christian Andersen, Charles Perrault, Joseph Jacobs, Andrew Lang and the Brothers Grimm were prominent in the collection.
How am I to know which of these fairy tales is the right one? the San Francisco native wondered.
With a sigh of resignation, she took an armful of books to the reading table (which, designed for a child, was barely two feet high) and started thumbing through them, hoping to find the answer to her clue. Page after page, book after book, Amanda looked through the stories loved by generations of children: "Cinderella," "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Little Match Girl," "Sleeping Beauty" and "The Ugly Duckling." She yawned and decided that she would finish looking through the stack next to her on the table; then, if she still had not found anything, she would turn in for the night and resume her search in the morning.
Her eyes burning and her muscles aching, Amanda picked up the second-to-last book in the pile, "The Tinder-Box." She turned the pages, expecting to see the familiar illustrations of Andersen's classic tale, but rather than drawings of the soldier, the witch or the dog with eyes the size of teacups, the author came across a photograph of Chris Nelson.
A sense of dread made her tremble. The picture reminded her of an interview she gave to a journalist from People magazine after Stephen Spielberg announced his plans to purchase the movie rights to her novel. During that interview, Amanda told the reporter that Nelson, her former student and the son of a disabled Vietnam veteran, had been the inspiration for her novel. Perhaps someone who read that article knew the true relationship between her and Chris and intended to use that knowledge to blackmail her.
Her head throbbing from lack of sleep and the shock of finding Chris's photo, Amanda went to the window, opened it and breathed in the cool night air. The scent of pine reminded her of her childhood Christmases during the Sixties. She heard the crickets chirping and remembered the many camping trips her family took to the Sierra Mountains in the Seventies.
While reminiscing about the past, she heard the unfamiliar screech of a storm window sliding rapidly down its tracks. Had Amanda lived during the French Revolution, that sound would no doubt have reminded her of the sound of the guillotine's blade falling. But she had not lived in France in the 1790s, and once the heavy glass storm window neatly severed her head from her neck, Amanda Cook ceased to live at all.
Clue: Say "cheese."
Allison Westfield was bored. She had expected a good deal more excitement from one of Angelica's famed bashes. She flew all the way from Paris to attend, only to discover once she arrived there were no interesting men among the guests.
"Had I known what a disappointment this party would be, I would have gone to Monte Carlo with Rico instead," the model grumbled to herself. "If things don't start livening up pretty soon, there's no way I'm gonna hang around here all weekend."
As she passed through a room filled with porcelain dolls, rag dolls and primitive poppets made of wax and wood, she recalled a photoshoot she once did where she was surrounded by similar dolls. She wore a very provocative set of Victoria's Secret lingerie, and the photographer thought the antique toys would add a touch of innocence to the photo.
Uninterested in toys, Allison crossed the threshold into what appeared to be a nursery. An antique canopy crib stood in the center of the room, surrounded by an English pram, an exquisitely carved high chair and a Victorian rocking horse. Shelves filled with stuffed animals and baby toys lined the nursery walls.
In a corner of the room was an old-fashioned bell pull. It was the first time she had ever seen such a device installed in a house. Previously, she had only seen them in old movies in which wealthy aristocrats would ring for their servants by tugging on the rope.
She gave the rope a pull, laughing, "I'll have my tea and scones in the conservatory, Jeeves."
Below the bell pull was a table, and on it was a photo album with "Our Baby" lovingly embroidered on its delicate silk cover. Allison's clue, "say cheese," the old cliché attributed to photographers, might refer to one of the photographs in the album.
"That wasn't much of a challenge. It's not even midnight yet, and I've already found my item. Now, what am I supposed to do until Monday morning?"
Allison was again disheartened by the prospect of having to waste an entire weekend in the boring old museum.
"Of course, there's no reason I have to hang around here. I can always call a taxi and return to civilization. That's assuming they have taxis in this godforsaken part of the world."
She opened the photo album, wondering if the promised reward could be hidden inside its pages. The book contained baby pictures dating back to the 1800s. She skimmed through the first few pages, more interested in finding a check than in seeing photographs of children from a bygone era. The pictures on the following page of the album, however, caught her attention. The ones mounted on that page were not like those on the previous pages. They were not those parents would proudly show friends and family. Rather, they were morbid and grotesque images: babies who had died at or shortly after birth and pathetic little corpses, sometimes horribly deformed. Allison quickly turned the page, but the rest of the album consisted of more of the same. Fighting off a wave of nausea, she put the book down on the table. She no longer cared about the reward; she only wanted to leave Hawthorne Manor—tonight or tomorrow at the latest.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a sudden movement and turned to see the bell pull gently swinging back and forth as though a slight breeze were blowing it. As she watched in astonishment, the tempo gradually increased until the bell pull swung out, as though caught in a gale-force wind, and struck Allison.
When the rope slapped against her face, she recovered from the temporary trance she was in, one induced by staring at the swinging rope. However, before she had the chance to move, the bell pull swung back and struck her again.
"What the hell?" she cried.
Before the model could get out of its way, the rope encircled her neck, gradually tightening and making it difficult for her to breathe. Frantically, she clawed at the noose-like rope, trying to pull it away. Then, as if strong, unseen hands had yanked at the other end of the bell pull, Allison was violently hauled up toward the ceiling, her feet dangling three feet above the floor. Her lovely, graceful neck was instantly broken, her beautiful, cover girl features frozen in a mask of terror.
Allison Westfield, whose face had graced top fashion magazines and whose name appeared in the scandal sheets and tabloids, swung slowly at the end of the old-fashioned bell pull. Poor Allison would not be leaving Hawthorne Manor that night, the following day or ever. As it turned out, she had no choice but to hang around the gloomy old mansion for all eternity.
Clue: Let no man put asunder.
Madeline DeMarco began her distinguished career as an assistant prosecutor in the Cook County district attorney's office. After ten years of long hours and low pay, she resigned and became one of the most prominent defense attorneys in Chicago. Such success, however, was not enough for a woman like Madeline who was driven by ambition. Her husband, an influential man with strong political connections, was already laying the groundwork for her senatorial campaign. One of the reasons she accepted the invitation to the party was to court the San Miguel family, anxious to add them to her growing list of financial backers.
As Madeline roamed through the old house, wondering when Angelica would finally arrive, she thought about her clue. Those traditional wedding vows were definitely out of vogue. These days most people did not bother promising to remain together. Madeline herself was on her second marriage. There was a good chance that this one would last since she needed Cliff's money and influence to achieve her political goals.
When Madeline neared the destination indicated on her map, she could hear music playing. She soon found herself in a room filled with music boxes. There were simple ones encased in plain wooden cases. Others were in ceramic figurines and elaborate mechanical dioramas. As she closely examined the rows of music boxes, she would occasionally select one, wind it up and listen to its enchanting melody.
"That must be the one," she decided when she spied a bride and groom waltzing on a wedding cake.
Both the figures and the base were made of fine porcelain, and the bride's dress and veil were adorned with Venetian lace. Lying next to the music box was a small gold key. Madeline picked up the music box, inserted the key into its base and wound it up, expecting to hear either the wedding march or another romantic tune. Surprisingly, a haunting funeral dirge emanated from its genuine Swiss movements.
The lawyer laughed, thinking how much more appropriate that song was for many marriages.
This must have been meant as a joke, she thought. Probably some close friend gave it to the bride and groom as a way of humorously pointing out the fatal mistake the couple was making.
When she attempted to put the music box back on the shelf, the dirge stopped, and a man's voice asked, "Do you Madeline take Douglas to be your lawfully wedded husband?"
She immediately recognized the voice of Reverend Miller who officiated at her first wedding ceremony. Startled by hearing it, she dropped the music box, which shattered on the hardwood floor.
"Do you promise to love him?" Reverend Miller's voice continued.
Madeline examined the pieces of porcelain, looking for a microchip or sound transmitter, but there was none.
"For better or worse, for richer or poorer ...."
She took a heavy wooden music box from off the shelf and proceeded to further smash the fragments of the bride and groom, hoping to silence Reverend Miller once and for all.
"In sickness and in health ...."
She ground the fragments underneath her shoe.
"'Til death do you part?"
One after another, in quick succession, the other music boxes began to play. Soon music was coming from every direction. Rather than the tempos slowing as the mechanisms wound down, they accelerated. A cacophony of sound filled the room, its volume deafening. In the maddening disharmony, it was quite impossible to distinguish one tune from another.
Madeline tried to flee from the hellish noise, but the door slammed shut and would not open. She spied a pair of French doors leading to a stone balcony. Hoping to escape the din of the music boxes, she ran through the doors to the end of the balcony. As she leaned against the iron rail, her hands clasped tightly over her ears, Madeline felt the railing pull away from the wall. She grabbed onto the stone balcony, looking down at the four-story drop below her. At that moment, the edge of the balcony gave way, and Madeline plummeted to the ground. She landed hard, breaking her back in the fall, but surprisingly she was alive and conscious.
Above her, the music stopped, and Madeline could hear Reverend Miller proclaim, "I now pronounce you man and wife."
As though on cue, the remainder of the balcony collapsed, burying the ambitious attorney beneath a pile of stones.
* * *
The following morning the five remaining guests woke up. They were well-rested and eager to begin their search. Having spent the night in peaceful slumber, they were unaware of the fate that had befallen the others. One by one they entered the dining room where coffee, tea and pastries awaited them. The domestic staff had presumably arrived during the night and were now working somewhere in the house.
"I wonder where everyone else is," the evangelist said.
"Probably still sleeping," the real estate tycoon surmised. "They must have stayed up half the night, scavenging through this old white elephant."
The five people took the same seats as they had the previous evening and noticed that at the place of each absent guest was a small stone disk, about four inches in diameter. Engraved on the disks were various combinations of the letters V, I and X.
"Any idea what these letters are all about?" the football player asked the woman to his left.
The actress merely shrugged her shoulders and sipped her tea.
None of the other guests could think of a plausible explanation for the disks, so they broke their fast while exchanging meaningless small talk. Then, they wished each other good luck and began their search.
Clue: I can be a little devil.
Mephistopheles was born Joseph Francis Morrelli on October 31, 1978, in Garfield, New Jersey. Like his predecessors from the Garden State—the Four Seasons, the Young Rascals, Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen—he became a legend of rock 'n' roll, but Joe Morrelli's music was nothing like that of his fellow performers from Jersey. There were no songs such as "Sherry," "Groovin'," "Livin' on a Prayer" or "Born to Run." Mephistopheles' hits included "Cast Down in the Fires of Hell," "Black Mass Boogie," "Sinners' Inferno," "Lucifer's Lover" and "Sell Your Soul to Me."
Inspired by Black Sabbath's Ozzy Osbourne, Joe performed in a red satin cape and horns designed by a Hollywood makeup artist. The final touch to his diabolical persona was a pair of knee-high boots with one made to look like a cloven hoof.
Morrelli played the Mephistopheles act to the hilt. His publicity photos, CD covers and music videos featured a wide array of satanic trappings: black candles, inverted crucifixes, goat heads and more. This devil worship sideshow made Joe Morrelli a sensation with the world's disaffected youth. All his recordings went platinum; all his concerts sold out in a matter of hours. Throngs of groupies vied for his attention, and his Las Vegas home was always filled with famous musicians, gorgeous women and a large assortment of drugs and alcohol.
Joe took a deep drag on his cigarette and followed his map to a room on the second floor of the east wing, the same room Dr. Richard Franklin had visited the previous evening. He carelessly crushed the butt out on the hardwood floor and opened the door.
"Look at all the costumes! Was Angelica planning on having a masquerade ball for her next party?"
The singer browsed through a collection of elaborate outfits depicting fairy tale characters and then moved to a rack of costumes from various countries around the world: Scottish kilts, Japanese kimonos, German lederhosen and Indian saris. There was clothing befitting medieval knights and ladies, pilgrims, Southern belles, Civil War soldiers and outfits for kings, clowns, baseball players and ballerinas.
Joe paused his search momentarily to snort a line of coke before continuing to examine the costumes on display. Nearly hidden behind the long train and veil of a miniature bridal gown, there was an opening to another, smaller room. The singer pushed aside the yards of white lace and taffeta and stepped inside.
"This place looks like a goddamned house of horrors," Joe remarked with enjoyment. "It makes me feel right at home!"
Hanging on the walls were hundreds of masks, hideous beyond belief. There were witches, werewolves, ghosts, vampires, zombies and ghouls. Monstrous as they were, there was no denying that they were the finest quality masks Joe had ever seen. The skin and hair looked disturbingly lifelike. They were definitely not the sort of trick-or-treat masks kids bought at Spirit Halloween or Party City.
When he spotted the mask of Satan, all thought of the scavenger hunt and its ambiguous reward left him. The mask was most likely what he had been sent to find, but he had no intention of revealing to anyone the fact that he discovered it. Without a doubt, the mask was the evilest visage of the devil Morrelli had ever seen, and it would be perfect for Mephistopheles!
The Jersey boy picked up the mask and pulled it down over his head. It was a perfect fit. He walked over to the mirror, anxious to see how he looked. It was amazing! One could not tell where the mask ended and his skin began. He could just imagine the reaction of his fans when he walked out on stage wearing this face!
Suspecting the owners of the museum might not want to sell the mask no matter how much money he offered, he decided to hide it in his suitcase and smuggle it out of the museum when he left on Monday. Should anyone notice it was missing, he would offer to pay for it, but he would not give it up. After all, wasn't possession supposed to be nine-tenths of the law?
In an attempt to remove the mask, Joe ran his fingers along his collar line. However, he could not locate the edge of the mask. Worse yet, the latex seemed to be getting tighter. He headed toward the hall to call for help, but after a few steps, he felt the eyeholes in the mask close so tightly that he could no longer see. He tried to scream, but the mouth opening, too, had closed, as had the slits near his nostrils. Unable to breathe, the singer fell to the floor, tugging frantically at the mask that was suffocating him.
Eventually, his body ceased to struggle, and his cloven foot stopped twitching. The metamorphosis from Joseph Francis Morrelli to Mephistopheles was complete.
Clue: I'll drive you crazy.
Larry Dawson took the pocket flask out of his jacket and twisted off the cap. What he needed now, what he always seemed to need, was a stiff shot of Jack Daniel's. He took a long, deep drink. Properly fortified by sour mash, he followed the route indicated by the map, stopping occasionally for another swig of J.D.
Larry enjoyed drinking ever since he pilfered that first can of beer at the age of thirteen. In his early years, he did not drink quite as heavily as he did now. It was not until after the accident, the one ill-fated event in an otherwise charmed life, that his consumption of alcohol reached an alarming level.
In his teenage years, Larry did poorly in school, but luckily, he was a gifted athlete. He could play just about every position of every sport. Football, however, was the one that most impressed the girls; and Larry, the handsome quarterback, saw plenty of action both on and off the field. His good fortune continued. He received a football scholarship to one of the Big Ten universities, made the All-American Team and was the first-round draft pick of the Miami Dolphins.
At the height of his professional career, Larry was involved in a car crash, one that he tried so desperately to forget, one that even now made him reach for the flask. Despite the accident and his serious drinking problem, Larry was an outstanding player. His salary was one of the largest in the NFL, and he also benefited financially from several lucrative endorsement deals.
Just as in high school and college, there was no shortage of adoring females. Early in life, Larry decided that marriage was not for him. His attitude toward women was to love 'em and leave 'em, which he did—frequently. The football hero's only lasting relationship had been with Jack Daniel's.
Larry Dawson, Super Bowl MVP, climbed the steep staircase and opened the solid oak door at the top. The long, wide hallway beyond was lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves containing scaled-down models of nearly every automobile ever made. Larry, who liked fast cars almost as much as he did beautiful women, stared in appreciation at the vehicles. All were perfect replicas down to the smallest detail. The comprehensive collection of die-cast vehicles included early roadsters and Model T's, gangster cars of the Twenties, muscle cars of the Sixties, Italian sports cars, Japanese economy cars and British luxury cars. Models ranged from the popular Volkswagen Beetle to the unpopular Ford Edsel, from the pricey Lamborghini Diablo to the economical Yugo and from the innovative Tucker to the short-lived DeLorean.
When Larry spotted the red Corvette, he froze. Sweat broke out on his palms, and he took another drink from his flask. It was the same car his brother Bobby had always wanted, the one Larry bought him for his eighteenth birthday. But the tiny model, unlike his brother's car, was in perfect condition.
Hands shaking, Larry picked up the miniature 'Vette. As he examined it, he noticed the license plate: it was Bobby's plate number. Larry dropped the car and grabbed the Jack Daniel's. After consuming a sufficient amount of alcohol to calm his nerves (was such a thing possible?), he picked the model up off the floor. What he saw might, literally, have driven him crazy. Not only was the car demolished, but the damage was identical to that done to his brother's car in the accident.
Larry closed his eyes, reliving that tragic night in his mind. He and his brother had been out celebrating. They should not have taken the car; they were both so drunk they could barely walk. Larry remembered the sounds, which had been haunting his dreams ever since: the squeal of tires, the breaking glass, the crunching of fiberglass and the wail of sirens. Larry, always the lucky one, walked away from the crash without a scratch, but Bobby died before the ambulance arrived.
Miami's star quarterback reached for the J.D. one last time. Gulping the liquor as if he were dying of thirst, he failed to notice the bitter taste that had not been there earlier. The football player suddenly fell to the floor as though tackled by an opposing linebacker. The strychnine in the Jack Daniel's caused his body to writhe with violent convulsions until, mercifully, the deadly poison paralyzed his brain, and his respiration and heartbeat stopped.
Larry Dawson's luck had finally run out.
Clue: Start at GO.
Howard Bennett wondered why anyone in their right mind would build a house in such a desolate area. One of the most successful developers in the Northeast, Bennett had a knack for selecting prime properties. Over the past thirty years, he bought up large tracts of land in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, tore down existing farms and homes and built office buildings, shopping malls and industrial parks.
Howard, who had a preference for modern structures of steel and glass, found Hawthorne Manor an architectural nightmare. A combination of stone and wood, it had so many additions built onto it over the years that it was hard to imagine what the original house must have looked like. As he walked through the Victorian-era hallways, Bennett thought the décor resembled the set from an old horror movie. Any minute he expected to see Vincent Price or Boris Karloff step out from one of the shadowed doorways.
The map finally led him to a game room. Tables and chairs were set around the room so that people could sit and play the hundreds of board games neatly stacked on the shelves. Howard, whose childhood predated the invention of Atari, Nintendo and Sega, had played many of those games himself. Most of them—Parcheesi, Chutes & Ladders, Candy Land and Clue—could still be purchased at the local Walmart.
As far as Howard knew, there was only one game where players started at GO: the classic board game based on buying and selling property, Monopoly. What kid, even in today's high-tech world, has not spent a rainy afternoon buying railroads, utilities or the much-sought-after Boardwalk?
After a brief search, Howard found the old Parker Brothers box, took it to one of the tables and opened it. Inside was the iconic playing board with its different colored properties named after the streets in Atlantic City, its utilities, the four railroads and the corner spaces: Go, Free Parking, Go to Jail and Jail itself. Also in the box were the dice, the play money, the deeds, the wooden houses and hotels and the metal playing pieces.
Howard took out the orange Chance cards and yellow Community Chest cards, flipped one over and read, "Take a ride on the Reading Railroad." Drawing that card was not too bad, as long as your opponent did not own all four railroads. He flipped over the next card: "Advance token to Boardwalk"; that one could conceivably break a player! The next card read, "Your property is condemned. Pay $75 to relocate."
"Funny, I don't remember a card like that ever being in Monopoly."
He turned over another card: "Caught bribing a building inspector. Pay $100 fine."
Howard laughed; maybe this was one of the special edition Monopoly games that popped up like weeds in gift shops and department stores. His sister had given him a Beatles edition for Christmas one year.
Bennett turned over yet another card: "Use substandard building materials. Collect $150 in kickbacks."
Perhaps he should have put the game away, but his curiosity got the better of him. He turned over one more card: "You did not pay your bill, so the electric company shut off your power." Just as Bennett finished reading the card, the light above the table went out, and he was plunged into semidarkness.
It might be a loose bulb, he thought.
Howard put his hand up under the lampshade to tighten the bulb. When he did, he touched a live wire, and one hundred and twenty volts of electricity shot through him. He fell forward, upsetting the table and sending the Monopoly game flying in the air. The dice, paper money, wooden buildings, metal game pieces, cardboard deeds, Community Chest and Chance cards rained down on Howard's smoldering corpse.
An orange Chance card landed on his outstretched palm. It read, "Go directly to hell. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200."
Clue: He'll buy you a mockingbird.
Erica Charles laughed when she read the clue. Leave it to her to get one that so obviously indicated the answer was "Papa." The daughter of legendary actor Sir Eric Welles, she had changed her name and spent her life trying to prove she was an actress in her own right and not just a limb on the Welles family tree.
As she tried to follow the map through the winding passageways and up and down old staircases, she declared, "A person could get lost in this mausoleum."
She laughed again. Erica frequently laughed, no matter what the circumstances. Hers was a low, throaty laugh that could, depending on her mood, sound malevolent, seductive or mysterious, but it rarely sounded humorous. It was her famous laugh along with her upper-class British accent and dry wit that made her the toast of the London stage.
Not content with her success in the theater, Erica set out to become a movie star. In pursuit of her dream, she left England for sunny Hollywood. Despite her adopted surname, most of the entertainment industry knew she was Eric Welles's daughter. Given this relationship, it was not long before she landed major roles opposite such actors as Anthony Hopkins, Sean Connery and Michael Caine. Only after she had an Oscar, three Golden Globes and several box office hits to her name, could the dazzling star hold her head high in the presence of her father.
Erica finally arrived at her destination: a room filled with elaborate dollhouses, complete with dolls and furniture. One building was a miniature Tudor palace where Henry VIII and one of his wives sat upon their thrones, surrounded by royal guards. In an antebellum plantation house, hoop-skirted belles danced with dashing Confederate soldiers in gray or butternut uniforms while black slaves attended to their needs. There was even an enchanted castle that housed an assortment of fairies, dwarves, witches, wizards and trolls. The impressive collection also included a farm, a log cabin, a Victorian mansion with gingerbread trim, a Swiss chalet and a lighthouse.
At the opposite end of the room, Erica spotted a Georgian townhouse, identical to the one in which she spent her childhood. She looked inside and saw that the interior, too, was the same, right down to the wallpaper, Oriental rugs and Heppelwhite furniture.
"Angelica must have gone to a lot of trouble to come up with this little surprise," Erica laughed, lighting up a cigarette. "The curators probably don't allow smoking in the museum, but since nobody's seen a bloody soul since we arrived, who's going to know?"
Stooping to get a better look inside the house, she closely examined the contents of each room. In the kitchen, she saw a female doll that strongly resembled her mother, with a tray of cookies fresh from the oven.
"I doubt Mum even knew where to find the kitchen."
Robert Welles, or rather the four-inch reproduction of him, was lying on the bed in the master bedroom.
"Old sot's probably dead drunk," his daughter laughed.
In the upstairs playroom was a third doll that was supposed to be Erica herself, but it was not a likeness of her as a child. Rather, it was that of a full-grown woman. Amazingly, it was dressed in the same outfit she was now wearing, one she had picked up in a London boutique only a few days earlier. How could anyone have known what she would wear? Someone in the house must have made the doll's outfit in the short time since she had gotten dressed that morning.
As she pondered the improbability of such an occurrence, Erica failed to notice that the lit end of her cigarette came into contact with the delicate lace curtains in the dollhouse's first-floor parlor.
"Oh, well, I don't suppose it matters how the doll is dressed," she concluded and put it back in the playroom. "Little Papa Doll here is more than likely the answer to my clue."
The actress picked up the father doll, intending to return to the dining room with it in hand, but as she neared the door to the hallway, she smelled a burning odor. She turned and stared in horror: the Georgian townhouse was on fire. Flames were quickly spreading through the miniature kitchen, living room and bedroom. In a matter of moments, the first two floors were an inferno. She stared helplessly as the fire consumed the playroom on the third floor.
Erica Charles then let out a bloodcurdling scream and fell to the floor, her body—like that of the doll in the blazing playroom—was soon burned to a crisp.
Clue: The more you feed me, the richer you'll grow.
Jethro Clayton—Brother Jethro to the members of his vast television congregation—had little difficulty solving the riddle. The answer was simple: the more you fed a bank, the richer you grew. God knows Jethro had filled many banks in his lifetime. Doing the Lord's work brought him many rewards, most of them financial. Brother Jethro, the son of a Tennessee moonshiner, was a household name in the Bible Belt, preaching the word of God over his own cable station.
The map led the popular evangelist to a room filled with hundreds of mechanical banks, all priceless antiques. A circus dog jumped through a clown's hoop when a coin was put in its slot, and a mechanical hunter shot his coin at a ferocious black bear. Jethro placed a penny in the outstretched palm of Uncle Sam, who promptly dropped it into the carpetbag at his side.
"Lucky for me, church property is tax deductible!" he chuckled, reaching into his pocket for more change, but there wasn't any. "Just like Uncle Sam to take your last cent."
He opened the bank, removed the pennies inside and put one into a large mechanical pig. Jethro laughed heartily when the pig's eyes opened and he oinked in the tune of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm."
Unlike the whimsical pig, there was nothing even remotely amusing about the bank next to it. It consisted of a large base on which Jesus, surrounded by Roman soldiers, stood face-to-face with Judas Iscariot. When a coin was placed in Judas's hand, tears fell from Christ's eyes and blood dripped from his hands. Jethro stared with revulsion at the blasphemous figure and grimaced with disgust.
"What's the matter? Don't you like this display, Brother Jethro?" a voice asked.
Jethro, engrossed in examining the exhibits, had not seen or heard Angelica San Miguel enter the room.
"Most of the banks are quite amusing, but I don't care for this one," he replied.
The sudden scent of smoke distracted him.
"Is something burning?" he asked with concern.
"That's just Erica. She really should quit smoking."
Jethro's attention returned to his clue.
"Am I supposed to look for a particular bank, or will just any one do?"
"No need to worry about that now. The party is over. It's time for you to join the others."
"Are they waiting in the dining room?" he asked, disappointed that the hunt had ended so soon.
"No. The others have all received their rewards—their just rewards. All nine of them are dead."
As Angelica spoke, her appearance changed. The feminine features of her face and the womanly curves of her body assumed a more androgynous appearance. The evangelist soon found it impossible to tell whether he was speaking to a woman or a man. In fact, the form was so lacking in feminine or masculine traits that it appeared to be completely without gender.
"You haven't guessed the meaning of this little party yet, have you, Brother Jethro? Surely a religious man like you can guess the significance of the disks."
The preacher was too shaken to answer.
"Those weren't letters on the disks, as you all surmised. They were Roman numerals. Ten in all: ten disks, ten guests, ten commandments—ten broken commandments, to be precise."
Jethro was frightened; Angelica was obviously insane. He once read somewhere that the best thing to do when confronted by a dangerous madman was to keep him talking. Besides, Jethro figured, he was a man of God, who better to reason with a religious fanatic?
"Is that what this is all about? Those people died because they broke a commandment? Hell, if that's the case, you might as well kill everyone! I dare say there isn't a person alive who hasn't broken at least one."
"Justice isn't black and white, Jethro. It involves numerous shades of gray. If a starving man steals a loaf of bread, he can be forgiven. But your fellow guests have committed grievous offenses in the eyes of God and had to suffer the consequences."
"What could those nine people have done that was so sinful they had to die?"
"You'd be surprised. Take Robert Kingsford, for instance, a respected producer of educational programs, a model citizen and a devoted family man. He broke Commandment 4: Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy."
"He had to die because he didn't go to church on Sunday? That's ludicrous!"
"His sin is a good deal more serious. How do you think he got the money to start his production company? He was a clerk at a video store who longed to become a producer. Every Sunday, his day off, he would make children's videos but not shows like Barney or Sesame Street. He made child pornography, really hard-core stuff."
"Okay, so Kingsford was a scumbag who got what was coming to him. But what about the doctor? He was a humanitarian and a philanthropist."
"Ah, yes, Doctor Richard Franklin, renowned surgeon, loving husband, a pillar of society, a man well known for his charitable deeds. How did the son of a fisherman attain such prominence? For one thing, he helped pay his way through medical school by providing amphetamines and barbiturates to anyone who could meet his price. Once he opened his practice, he often performed unnecessary operations and cheated Medicare and insurance companies."
"The doctor certainly didn't hesitate to break the law, but what commandment did he break?"
"Commandment 3: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain. He swore an oath before God, the Hippocratic Oath, and he didn't just break it: he completely shattered it."
"And the writer, what did she do that was so bad?"
"Amanda Cook received a Pulitzer Prize and a fortune in royalties for her novel—only she never wrote a word of it. A former student of hers, Chris Nelson, wrote the book about his own family's experiences. Chris was a very talented writer, but he made one fatal mistake: he asked his former English professor to look at his draft and perhaps offer a few suggestions.
"Amanda—jealous of anyone who had talent, which was something she sadly lacked—told him the book was so sentimental and melodramatic that no publisher would ever print it. Chris, emotionally unstable since his father's suicide, couldn't handle the rejection, so he took an overdose of sleeping pills. It was Amanda, who had the audacity to return to Chris's apartment the next day with a bill for editing services, who found his body. Instead of calling the police, she took the manuscript and contacted a publishing house, passing the book off as her own work."
"Commandment 8: Thou shalt not steal. Right?"
"Right. That brings us to Commandment 6: Thou shalt not kill. Though you would never know it to look at her, Allison Westfield was a woman with no regard for human life."
"That beautiful young girl was a killer?"
"Not as you would define the word. Allison was a top model; her face and her figure were her meal tickets. She couldn't afford to lose either one. But, rather than take precautions to avoid conceiving a child, she simply had one abortion after another. She felt no hesitation, no regret."
Not about to debate the subject of abortion, Jethro asked what commandment Madeline DeMarco broke.
"Commandment 7: Thou shalt not commit adultery."
"You've got to be kidding! Most of the men who sat in the Oval Office are guilty of the same sin; why would you go after DeMarco?"
"As I said before, it's a matter of degree. Before going into politics, she defended a woman charged with homicide. Madeline, who was married at the time, caught the eye of the defendant's husband. They had an affair while the trial was in progress. Since the couple had a great deal of money and political pull, they managed to keep publicity to a minimum. Madeline already had her eye set on the senate and realized what that kind of power could do for her career."
"Did she get the wife off in exchange for the husband's political support?"
"Just the opposite. She uncovered evidence proving the woman was innocent and destroyed it. Madeline and the husband then talked the wife into pleading not guilty by reason of insanity."
"Why on earth would she plead insanity if she was innocent?"
"They lied, told her she could either spend a year in the hospital or the rest of her life in jail. The wife chose the hospital and was committed to a private sanitarium. Soon after, her husband divorced her and took control of all the money. A few months later, Madeline split with her husband and married her lover."
"You mean the guy was Cliff DeMarco?"
"Madeline's second husband."
"And the wife? What happened to her?"
"The poor woman is still in the institution. Next, there is Mephistopheles, who broke Commandment 1: Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
"But all that devil worship nonsense was just an act. The guy was a rock star."
"Yes, but like many entertainers, he was always searching for new distractions, bigger thrills: women, alcohol, drugs. Finally, he began slipping into his on-stage persona when he wasn't performing. For kicks, he'd dress up in his horns and cloven foot and hold black masses. Sometimes he and his friends would invite young girls to these ceremonies. Mephistopheles would cut their arms and drink their blood. One night, stoned out of his mind, he cut a little too deeply. He was so high he didn't notice until the following morning that the girl had bled to death."
Jethro had to admit that he was intrigued by his hostess' words. As insane as Angelica obviously was, her motives had a bizarre sense of logic to them.
"What about Larry Dawson?"
"He broke Commandment 9: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Dawson bought his brother a Corvette for his eighteenth birthday. Later that night, the two of them went out drinking. On the way home, they had a bad car accident, and the brother was killed. Although Larry was devastated by the boy's death, he was also afraid that the scandal might destroy his career. So, when Larry was questioned by the police, he told them his brother had lost control of the car and crashed into a tree.
"Based solely on Larry's story, Bobby Dawson was blamed for the accident, but it was Larry, who was behind the wheel of the Corvette that night. Not only was he responsible for the crash that killed his sibling, but he also refused to accept the consequences for his actions, preferring to let his dead brother's memory be sullied instead."
"And Bennett? What's his story?"
"Howard Bennett broke Commandment 10: Thou shalt not covet anything that is thy neighbor's. He not only coveted his neighbor's property, but he would also use any means, legal or otherwise, to obtain it. He was utterly unscrupulous. If there was a piece of land he wanted and the owner refused to sell, he would sometimes bribe the building inspectors or the department of health to condemn the dwelling. Other times he'd try subtle little pranks to intimidate the owners: slice the tires on the family car, paint swastikas on the windows or burn a cross on the lawn.
"One time he wanted to buy a farm in upstate New York where he planned to build a medical park. The farmer refused to sell the land that had been in his family for several generations, so Bennett hired some goons to set fire to the barn. Tragically, the arsonist didn't know that the farmer's daughter was playing in the hayloft. When she saw the flames, the little girl jumped from the burning loft. She survived the fall, but it left her paralyzed from the waist down."
"Who's left?" Jethro asked. "Oh, yeah, Erica Charles, the actress."
"The divine Erica, the dazzling star of stage and screen, the toast of two continents, was nothing more than an insecure, neurotic woman who spent years trying to avoid being eclipsed by the shadow of her famous father. Yet when she finally felt she was a star in her own right, rather than enjoy her success, she decided it was time to put Daddy in his place. Erica was about to publish a book about her father that, in comparison, would make Joan Crawford look like the mother of the Brady Bunch. In her book, Erica accuses her father of every perversion known to man, claiming she was molested, mentally and physically tortured and, later in life, completely ignored by Sir Eric."
"Was any of it true?" Jethro asked.
"The only thing Eric Welles was guilty of was outrageously spoiling the little brat. He got her anything and everything she wanted: private schools, designer clothes, exotic vacations and expensive cars. But what Erica really wanted was Daddy's attention, and she didn't want to share it—not with any of his wives, his mistresses or even his fans."
Jethro did a quick mental calculation.
"So that takes care of Commandment 5: Honor thy mother and thy father. But that comes to only nine commandments. What about the tenth?"
"Commandment 2: Thou shalt not worship any graven images. That's your offense, Jethro."
"What? Don't be ridiculous! I'm a man of God."
"Maybe you were once, but I doubt it. Did you forget those early tent revivals of yours, the ones with the phony healings in which you supposedly made the lame walk and the blind see? All those poor, pathetic sheep anxious to follow a leader—you had them in the palm of your hands."
"I brought them all to Jesus. I only wanted to save their souls."
"You brought them to the brink of financial ruin. You were more interested in their savings than their souls. The dollar sign—there's your graven image. You worship the Almighty Buck. You preach with a Bible in one hand and a collection plate in the other."
"All ministries take collections."
"To support the clergy, maintain the churches, finance missionaries and aid charities. Your collections, Brother Jethro, went into your pockets. How many houses do you own? Six? Seven? What about cars: a Mercedes, a limo, a Porsche and a Bentley? And your trips! Tell me, what religious pilgrimage took you to Paris, Tahiti and Hawaii? Then there are those bogus foundations you organized to fight world hunger, rehabilitate drug addicts, provide homes for abused women and children and build shelters for the homeless. Every cent went directly to you."
Jethro was on the verge of panic. He was obviously Angelica's next intended victim, and the thought of being murdered terrified him. Perhaps that was why he failed to notice that the scent of smoke was more pronounced.
"You still haven't figured out who I am, have you, Jethro?"
"I thought you were Angelica San Miguel. I don't know who or even what you are now."
"That's but one of the many names I use."
Jethro noticed that as the being spoke, a faint aura began to emanate from it. And, then from the folds in the back of the robe emerged—no, it couldn't be! Yes, it was! The creature had wings.
"You're an angel," the evangelist exclaimed in amazement.
"Not just any ordinary angel."
"Angelica San Miguel," he muttered, suddenly making the connection. "You're the Archangel Michael, the head of the forces of heaven in their battle against the powers of hell, the angel of cosmic justice."
"I'm impressed, Brother Jethro! Even if you have no grasp of the substance of what you preach, you certainly know the form. Yes, I'm Saint Michael, and I enforce God's laws here on earth. And now you, who have collected so much in his name, have to pay."
The aura became so bright that Jethro had to shut his eyes and shield them with his hand. When he opened them again, Saint Michael was gone.
"I'm still alive," Jethro cried with relief. "Thank God!"
That's when the fire Erica Charles so carelessly started with her cigarette reached the propane tanks in the basement. The resulting explosion blew Brother Jethro Clayton to Kingdom Come.
* * *
Angelica San Miguel sat in her villa in Rome, sipping espresso and looking through a stack of newspapers that included among others The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle and The Miami Herald. In the pages of the U.S. and European papers were stories reporting the deaths of ten prominent, wealthy people, all of whom died on the same day. But no one, least of all the members of the press, had noticed a connection between them.
Who would connect a television producer found in Los Angeles, a prominent surgeon in Boston, a writer in San Francisco, a model in Paris, an attorney in Chicago, a rock star in Las Vegas, a football hero in Miami, a real estate tycoon in New York, an actress in London and a TV evangelist in Nashville? All were found dead in their own homes, having died in their sleep of natural causes.
It's always the same, Angelica thought. And it's been that way for millenniums.
Those ten people had not been murdered. Neither Hawthorne Manor nor any of its exhibits had killed them. Nor could the fault be placed on Saint Michael. All he did was make them confront the secrets they harbored in their hearts and souls. As a result, they were destroyed by their own guilty consciences.
Just for the record, although one of the characters in this story refers to abortion as murder, the author is pro-choice.
"Young at Heart" was published in 1953. Music by Johnny Richards and lyrics by Carolyn Leigh.
Salem, you were supposed to find an old dish, not a goldfish.
