Blackman's Coffin by Mark de Castrique Read Free Book Online

Carolina made the exterior of the mammoth home as familiar as the Eiffel Tower. Henderson Youngblood’s description of the surrounding landscape gave me a new connection, one that enticed me to walk on the property he had traversed eighty-eight years earlier.
    Nakayla steered clear of the gridlocked tourists and we zipped through the village. The Biltmore mansion was not visible from the road, only the stream of cars disappearing into the forest through its massive gate. Perhaps that was the route Henderson Youngblood had taken on his pony.
    A few miles farther, we turned right across from St. Joseph’s Hospital and began climbing a winding road through an established neighborhood. Homes were eclectic in style—from ranches to two-story and even three-story structures built along the slope. I didn’t see any apartment complexes other than an occasional duplex.
    “Did Tikima live in an older residence?” I asked.
    “You might say that.” Nakayla swung the Hyundai along a looping road that circumscribed the top of a wooded knoll.
    Suddenly the trees gave way to a grassy clearing and I was astonished to see a huge building towering above bordering pines. “Good God, is this her place? It’s a grand hotel.”
    “Used to be. That’s the Kenilworth Inn. Goes back to the 1880s. Then it caught fire and was rebuilt around 1913. It’s on the National Historic Registry.”
    The stately old Tudor had to be five or six stories with wings rambling off a grand entrance marked by a high stone porte-cochere. Back in the day, hundreds of carriages must have unloaded at its doors.
    “Hard to believe something like this still exists,” I said. “And it’s apartments?”
    “Right now. A developer from the West Coast bought it. Saved it from being razed. Probably go condo someday, but Tikima liked to dream she was princess of the manor.” Nakayla followed the road around a wide expanse of lawn. An American flag flapped atop a silver pole at the center of the arcing driveway.
    “Princess of the manor,” I repeated. “I can believe that.”
    “I called her queen of the asylum.” Nakayla pulled into a parking space and yanked up the handbrake. “For most of its life, the Kenilworth Inn was a government hospital and mental institution.” She opened her door, and then turned back to me. “I have a feeling you’ll fit right in.”
    I stood and leaned against the car, setting my leg and taking a deep breath.
    “Don’t worry,” Nakayla said. “I’ll drop you at the front. You mentioned Tikima’s car and I thought we ought to check it.” She crossed behind her trunk and led me past a few vehicles to a silver Avalon. She reached in the pocket of her jeans for a key remote.
    “Is that Tikima’s key?”
    “No. Her purse was never found. This is the spare from the apartment. I told you I thought about driving her car to pick you up.” She double-clicked a button and the four doors unlocked.
    “So the police didn’t check it out,” I said.
    “They dusted for prints. The investigating officer theorized that Tikima might have been abducted as she started to get in the car. They looked for signs of a struggle, but found nothing.”
    We stood on black asphalt and I looked down at a collage of oil drips and pine sap. The hard surface showed no scrape marks or gouges. Any blood stains not washed away by rain would have been discovered by a halfway decent mobile crime lab.
    “Can I look inside?” I asked.
    Nakayla opened the driver’s door. The interior was clean except for the expected litter of a few parking receipts and gum wrappers. The tan leather seats showed minimal signs of wear, but the gearshift in the console had undergone a change. A metal bolt had been attached to either end of the grip. It took me a second to understand this homemade modification had been done to accommodate Tikima’s prosthesis. The pinchers could be anchored in the hole of each bolt, enabling Tikima to squeeze the release button and slide