His Dark Obsession

Chapter 49: Red Herring

The lane that led down to the home of Ida Boyd comprised of shabby, old houses. The trees around the area were old and wrinkly -- with protruding veins, thick trunks and crooked branches. This Montauk neighborhood was a very poorly preserved, century old locality. The unsettling environs made Ian question his decision to bring Tara along with him. He hadn't orginally planned for her to come, he had wanted her to stay back at her parents but she was having none of it. "You go with me or not at all," she had said. Her reasons stemmed from concern for him, which delighted him to no end: "We are closing in, Ian. I can feel it. I can't let you put yourself in danger alone, I just can't. I want to be by your side. I will go mad sitting at home, wondering if you are alright!...This house, I feel...holds the answers."
Ian's GPS had brought them to a secluded corner of a shady street, where a solitary house stood in peeling dark green paint and broken, anchor grey, concrete roof tiles.
The overgrown grass and bush and the rusted garden chairs, spoke of age-old neglect; the house could easily be mistaken for being vacant.
Ian parked his car some distance away from the house and turned off the ignition. "I think we should stay put for a little while, assess our surroundings, before we ring the bell."
"Yes, I think it seems wise to wait." Tara agreed, sinking into her seat.
For the half an hour that the both of them sat in the car, there was no activity on the street, nor any in the house; there was just sinister quiet. Ian felt himself running out of patience. It was close to the evening when Ian unlatched the glove compartment in his car and took out a revolver from its leather cover.
Ian caught a glimpse of sheer horror on Tara's face, "Ian, remember, the PI said he had been around here the night before, and the house was most likely unoccupied. Do you really think a gun is necessary?"
"The twenty four hours he spent here in a stake out yielded no result. This morning he rang the bell and even went around to look through the windows. This house isn't abandoned, Tara. I just know it. There's somebody in there. And if they don't answer, we'll have to break in. The revolver's for our protection."
Ian concealed the gun in his jacket pocket and got out, Tara followed suit. They both proceeded to the front of the house and climbed up the steps on the front deck. Ian rang the bell and they both stood outside, waiting.
The front of the house had a wooden inner door, and an outer one, comprising mostly of wire mesh with wood frame. The inner door creaked open as Ian rang the bell for the second time, startling both Ian and Tara. Through the wire netting on the front door, Ian saw tangled, white hair in a vintage bob. A shaky, wrinkled hand began to fiddle with the several locks on the door frame as curious eyes tried to bring into focus the guests standing at their front door.
"Wait, please. It takes me a while to undo these locks." The old lady dressed in a lose, white cotton maxi addressed no one in particular, her attention solely focused on the bolts. She continued her laborious task at an unhurried pace - it was probably the only kind of pace she could manage. Ian stared at her in flabbergasted silence.
From the look that passed between him and Tara, Ian ascertained that Tara was as shocked and surprised as him. Whatever they had been expecting -- this was far from it.
When all the locks on the door were undone, the old lady gingerly stepped forward and gave the door a gentle yank to pop her head out. "There, now, how can I help you?"
Ian was too stunned to say anything. Tara noticed his hesitation and spoke up, "Hello, I am Tara and this my friend Ian. We have come here from New York to talk to you about a call our friend received from this house a couple of days ago."
"What's your friend's name, dear?" The old woman's voice was gentle friendliness and curiosity.
"Jake Cada."
"Jake...of course! I know who Jake is. Was. I called him. Oh, come in both of you. I heard about his passing on tv. I am so sorry!" And then she looked Ian over, "You are his business partner, aren't you? I thought you looked fimiliar! Come on in!"
The inside of the house was cozy and comfortable. The living area was an axiomatic combination of green upon green -- with the rug and the sofa in the same shade. Additionally, both were adorned in a floral print, the kind that was a popular design almost two decades ago. A picture tube tv was perched upon a wooden table, with rows of magazines and old papers stacked up on the floor of the sooted fireplace and the two side tables. The lighting in the living area was dim as it came from two lampshades in opposite corners of the room. Overall, the inside was quite an improvement over the outside.
"Would you like to have some cookies? I baked them yesterday and put them in a jar so they remain moist and fresh."
"No, thank you!" Ian's tone was polite, almost empathetic.
"Ah...so he speaks! I was wondering when you would say something. Your voice compliments you very well young man." The old woman's admiration shone in her eyes.
"Thank you...Ida. That is your name?"
Ida's eyes twinkled more, "Yes, dear. Ida Boyd. You may call me, Ida."
"Ida, could you tell us the nature of your call to Jake that day?"
"Yes...well, it is all very mundane, really. I was in a hospital in New York and Jake visited there as a part of his charity 'A Hand to Hold' and I was one of the patients his charity covered medical bills for. I stayed in the hospital for over a week because of a cracked rib. A nasty fall in the bathroom! Later, Jake would call me occasionally to check up on me. I called him that day to say hello and a thank you for the cake I received from him for my birthday."
"He sent you a cake?" Ian asked her in astonishment.
"Yes, I received it an hour before I made the call to thank him. I told him there was no need for such gestures and that he had done a lot for me already but he said, he had wanted to do it and that...I reminded him of his late grandmother, whom he had lost at a very young age!"
"Yes, he lost both his grandparents when he was very young." Ian confirmed.
"What he said warmed my heart. I hear that youngsters today don't care much for the old folks but I have found the opposite to be true!"
Tara came to sit next to Ida, "Have you lived here alone after your time at the hospital? How do you manage?"
"Yes, I live here alone, dear but a nurse comes to check up on me daily. Sometimes my grandchildren also visit but I do fine on my own!"
Ian felt like he had heard all that he wanted to from the old lady. He felt guilty for showing up at her house unannounced. He decided that it was time they left. "Ida, I am so sorry we disturbed you. We will be leaving now."
As both of them got up to leave, Ian turned around as a thought crossed his mind. "Ida, were you at home the past two days?"
"No, dear. My nurse drove me to the city for my scheduled check-up."
"Alright, thank you so much for your time." Ian's cursory glance fell over the mantel above the fireplace as he fell into step with Tara while heading for the front door and he immediately halted. "What's this creature in the photo?"
"It's the Montauk Monster."
"The what?" Tara inquired, visibly staggered.
"You don't know about the Montauk Monster? It washed ashore in Montauk in 2008." Ida walked over to the mantel and held the photo frame in her hand, "this is me and these are my grandkids. They lost their mother very young and the father has never truly bothered with them, so they lived with me. We were at the beach the day the carcass was found. It was a group of girls who found it. It was so strange looking and menacing, we hadn't ever seen anything like it before. The girls put a picture of it on the internet and it attracted a lot of attention. That's how the creature got its name."
As Tara got close to Ida to inspect the picture, she asked, "Didn't you ever put up this picture up on the internet?"
"No, dear. I don't have head for such things!...There were reporters who would come by, asking about what I had seen but I didn't want the attention so I would tell them I knew nothing, didn't even show 'em this photo! The carcass soon disappeared from the beach and the Montauk Monster became an urban legend."
When Ian and Tara both stepped away from the house, Tara was the first to break silence. "Jake was a saint!"
"Yes, I did know about the charities he associated with but I didn't know he was so personally involved. Calling and checking up on patients, sending them cakes. I would have never persumed him to be this sentimental. I guess, even I didn't know him that well...!"
"Gosh! And to think we were convinced we had found the killer's home!"
"Yes. Our assumption was pretty premature, wasn't it? I mean, we only had the PI's statement about a possible 'shady' house to go on, and we concluded that this house was the answer to all our troubles!"
"Yes, and you even carried a gun inside!" Tara remarked.
Ian nodded thinking what Ida would have done had she known that the couple she had so warmly welcomed into her home were armed!
"So what do we do now?" Tara asked in bewilderment.
"We go after the other lead. The house in Brooklyn."
"Isn't it better to involve Detective Kelly this time? The man is insanely smug but I do get the feeling that he means well!"
"I did call Kelly yesterday and asked him how the investigation was going, he told me that you and I were officially off the suspect list! They tracked our activity through surveillance videos on the residential buildings that we visited, and also the other buildings in the vicinity. "
"Ian this is such good news. Why didn't you tell me this before?"
"Well, we have been rather busy today...."
"Did you tell him you were investigating people based on Jake's phone records?"
"Well...in not those exact words!"
"What does he think about the house in Brooklyn?"
"He said he would send his men down there tomorrow."