The girl at the general store hadn't been exaggerating: the room I walked into was definitely creepy. For one thing it was dim and full of shadows; all the curtains were drawn and the only illumination came from a floor lamp in one corner. There was just enough light so the dozens of glass eyes arranged throughout caught and reflected it in faint, dark glints that made them seem alive. Half a dozen deer heads, one sporting an impressive set of six-point antlers. An elk's head mounted on a massive wooden shield. A game fish of some sort on another shield. On one table, a fat raccoon sitting up on its hind paws, holding an oyster shell between its forepaws. On another table, an owl with its wings spread and its taloned claws hooked around the remains of a rabbit. Dusty glass display cases bulging with rodents—squirrels, chipmunks, something that might have been a packrat. Two chicken hawks mounted on pedestals, wings half-unfolded and beaks open, glinty eyes staring malevolently at each other, as if they were about to fly into bloody combat. All of that, and a farrago of ancient furniture and just plain junk thrown about in no order whatsoever so that the effect of the place—and the smell that went with it—was of somebody's musty, disused attic.
I was standing there taking it all in when the old man came through a doorway at the rear. He was slat-thin and so stoop-shouldered he seemed to be walking at a low, forward tilt. Thick, knob-knuckled hands, a puff of fuzzy, reddish gray hair like dyed cotton, a nose that resembled the beaks of the two chicken hawks. Dressed in a pair of faded overalls and a tattered gray sweater worn through at both elbows. He was a perfect fit with the rest of the place: old, dusty, frail, and riddled with slow decay.
Or so it seemed until he spoke. When he said, “Yes?” his voice spoiled the impression. It was strong, clear, and more irascible than friendly.
“Mr. Bertolucci?”
“That's right. Help you with something?”
“Possibly. I'd like to—”
“Don't do deer anymore,” he said. “Nor elk nor moose nor anything else big. Too much work, too much trouble.”
“I'm not here about—”
“Birds,” he said, “that's my specialty. Hawks, owls—predators. Nobody does 'em better. Never have, never will.”
“I'm not here to have something stuffed and mounted, Mr. Bertolucci. I'd like to ask you a few questions.”
“Questions?” He moved closer to me in that crabbed way of his and peered up at my face. His own was swarthy and heavily creased; the lines bracketing his mouth were so deep they looked like incisions that had not yet begun to bleed. His rheumy old eyes were full of suspicion now, as glass-glinty as those of the stuffed animals and birds. “What questions?”
“About a man named Harmon Crane, a writer who died back in 1949. I wonder if you knew him.”
Silence for a time—a long enough time so that it seemed he might not answer at all. His gaze remained fixed on my face. There was a slight puckering of his mouth around badly fitting dentures; otherwise he was expressionless.
“How come?” he said finally.
“How come what, Mr. Bertolucci?”
“How come you're interested in Harmon Crane?”
“You did know him, then?”
“I knew him. Been dead a hell of a long time.”
“Yes sir. I'm trying to find out why he killed himself.”
“What for, after all these years?”
I explained about Michael Kiskadon. Bertolucci listened with the same lack of expression; when I was done he swung around without speaking, went over to the table with the owl on it, and began to stroke the thing's feathers as if it were alive and a pet. “Ask your questions,” he said.
“Did you know Crane well?”
“Well enough not to like him.”
“Why is that?”
“Stuck-up. Big-city writer, always tellin people what to do and how to do it. Thought we was all hicks up here.”
“You did get along with him, though?”
“We was civil to each other.”
“Did you know he used your name in one of his books?”
“Heard it. Didn't like it much.”
“But you didn't do anything about it.”
“Like what? Sue him? Lawyers cost money.”
“You rented Crane a cabin, is that right?”
“Stupidest thing I ever done,” he said.
“Why do you say that?”
“Told you. I didn't like him.”
“Where was this cabin?”
“Not far. Five miles, maybe,” Bertolucci said. Slowly, as if he were reluctant to let go of either the words or the information. “End of the big peninsula south of Nick's Cove.”
“The cabin still there?”
“Long gone.”