Smart House by Kate Wilhelm Read Free Book Online

listen. That thing on his head was an open weave net bag; it couldn’t hurt him, not really. Milton told them all to go to the living room and stay and no one argued with him, and that would make Gary furious, she thought. He couldn’t bear for anyone else to give orders. That was his prerogative, no one else’s. Bruce took Maddie to her room because Maddie would not stop yelling, and that was silly. It was a game, Beth thought at her, just a game. Rich was playing the game. Then someone was shaking her slightly and she focused her eyes to see Jake.
    “Hold on, kid,” he said. “Just hold on. Okay?”
    She nodded, and she was okay suddenly. His face was ridged, with hard lines down both sides of his cheeks, like a wood carving, she thought, as if he had put on a mask. “Is there something we should do?” she asked then. “Call the police? An ambulance? Where is everyone else?”
    “Milton’s trying to find everyone now. He called the sheriff’s office already. Can you help me get some coffee? I’m afraid we’re in for a long night.”
    She nodded. Laura was on one of the couches looking like a zombie. Bruce was there, and Harry.
    “We’re going to get coffee,” Jake said to them. “Milton wants everyone to wait here. We’ll bring it back when it’s ready.”
    Milton Sweetwater was the company attorney, Beth thought distantly. Perry Mason taking charge. She followed Jake from the room. They had barely got started searching for the coffee when Milton appeared at the kitchen door and asked them to come back to the living room.
    “We can’t find Gary,” he said. He was pale and so somber it was like another mask. They all had masks, Beth thought almost wildly. Milton turned to Alexander and said, “Get on that computer and unlock his door.”
    Alexander Randall was biting his fingernails as he faced Milton. “He’ll kill me if I unlock his door,” he protested.
    “And I’ll kill you if you don’t.”
    Alexander looked at the others beseechingly, then seated himself at the computer terminal in the living room and started to key in something. He stopped and looked up at Milton. “There’s a better way, through security. At least I can find out if he went to his room.”
    They all watched the screen as Alexander typed in instructions. No one moved. Finally Milton said, “In the Jacuzzi.”
    They started out together and, without volition on her part, Beth followed. They went around the atrium, to a narrow hallway backed by obsidian, through another short hall to a closed door. It opened at a touch. The insulating cover was over the Jacuzzi pool. The room was hot, the air foul with chlorine, dense with steam, more like a steam bath than a Jacuzzi room. For a moment no one moved, then Milton found a control panel on the wall and studied it for a moment; he pushed a button. The cover of the pool slid open, releasing clouds of steam, and there in the water, face down, was the fully clothed body of Gary Elringer.

Chapter 4

    Charlie Meiklejohn brooded about the weather. The end of August, two more weeks of hell before they could expect real relief. And what the devil caused the haze that hung between the trees and followed the contours of the hill out back like a London fog? Not rain. The grass was browning nicely and he’d be damned if he would water it. There was too much. Constance watered a patch surrounding the terrace behind the house, but that was because it bordered her flowers, and no drought would be allowed to detract from the riot of colors. They had a green backdrop, and then the grass turned brown. So much the better. It might not need mowing again this season, and if there was anything Charlie disliked more than shoveling snow, it was mowing grass. You water it, and fertilize it, and then you cut it down, he thought, and shook his head. Dumb.
    “Dead cat,” Constance murmured, joining him on the back terrace, shaded by purple clematis and wisteria. She pointed to Brutus, on his back