The Devil's Analyst Read Online Free PDF Page B

lived long enough that the world largely forgot who he was, so when he passed away at home in quiet anonymity, no one quite realized he was dead for over a week. Eventually the smell drifted over the pool of the hot young screenwriter renovating his house next door. It was probably more the current celebrity of the writer than Cambrian’s former renown that ensured the discovery of Augustus received a well-placed story in the Los Angeles Times .
    Given California’s strong disclosure laws for real estate, the history of the unfortunate corpse deterred buyers. It didn’t help that the rooms were filled with memorabilia. The old man had been a packrat of the demonic and obscure. Some said he tried to preserve the relics of the early days of horror films, but to Danny, it always seemed more than that. But none of that history could explain Kenosha’s current feelings. She never entered the house before the heirs had emptied it, so she couldn’t have flashbacks to things she had never seen.
    “It’s so quiet up here,” Kenosha explained, “it’s easy to start imagining things.”
    Danny had always preferred to conjure scenes of glamour and romance. When the realtor first drove them through the gates into the circular drive, Danny was smitten. He liked the house’s asymmetrical lines and the way the circular tower intersected the house’s two wings at odd angles. Elaborate terra cotta cladding and tile work surrounded the door. Intricate wrought iron graced the balconies. Blooming birds of paradise lined the twenty-step staircase from the drive to the front door. The pieces fit together in an unexpected way, and convinced him that this house was where he belonged.
    Stepping inside the building made his belief momentarily quaver. It smelled like a house sealed up too long with an old man’s collection. A few weeks’ airing by open windows had failed to dissipate an odor that seemed baked into the paint of the hand-troweled walls. Most of the director’s possessions were still in place during the showing. The realtor explained that the heirs were arguing over their disposal. Although none had seen the man in years, each was convinced that his moldering collection had to be worth a fortune.
    Dimness cloaked everything. It wasn’t a problem of light. The windows had been washed and the old brocade draperies removed. Rather, it was the accumulated remnants of decades. Every room was painted in a color of the past. The kitchen hadn’t been touched since the sixties, and the bathrooms still sported the green and black tile of the twenties. But Danny saw a potential luster in the peg and groove floors. He knew current artisans couldn’t easily duplicate the original plaster walls or the ornate bronze sconces. The staircases, fireplaces, and outdoor fountains constituted a museum showcasing early handmade tile firms: Malibu. Batchelder. Catalina. Gladding McBean. The original designer had not worried about consistency or loyalty or logic. The house pulled together whatever caught the fancy of the moment. Josh called it “a potpourri of the hodgepodge.” Danny guessed it was as good a way to describe the style as any, and he liked the result.
    As long as he avoided thinking about the chamber of horrors they found, Danny didn’t mind the house’s past. The villa’s lowest level, a vast basement with few windows and just one small wooden exit to the back of the street-to-street lot, had been the director’s so-called museum: a nightmare of old props from long-forgotten films; imaginary torture devices featured in one plot or another; and racks of decaying costumes. Mixed among that were genuine relics of the Dark Ages and the Spanish Inquisition. Eventually, the heirs managed to sell most of it for a good profit to one type of collector or another. None of it remained when Josh and Danny took possession. But on the first showing when Danny walked into that basement, it was all still there and it felt evil.
    Josh called