Chapter Ten #2
“True enough. But the answer is the same: To my knowledge, Monterey neither experienced any widespread witchcraft scares nor held public witchcraft trials, much less hangings. To be fair, I haven’t read every single document in our manuscript collection.
We just don’t have the budget for a professional historian or archivist. We do our best to acquire and save papers from the established Monterey families and businesses, but usually the best we can manage is to keep the stuff dry and safe from insects and fire. ”
“Which is no small thing,” said Harper. “The work you do is invaluable.”
“I appreciate that. It’s a bit of a thankless job, but I love history and since I’m not wild about being around people, working here suits me fine.”
“Are you from this area originally?”
Constance laughed. “Goodness, no. I’m from Washington state, near Tacoma. Got my master’s in library science at U-Dub. But my late husband was a colonel in the army and was posted here to help oversee the closing of Fort Ord. We liked the area so much we stayed after he retired.”
“I can see why. It’s beautiful around here. Not as much left from the early years as I’d hoped, which is unfortunate. What do you have on the history of the Perles Mansion?”
“Now, that I can help you with,” Constance said.
“We were able to digitize our local newspaper collection thanks to a generous grant from a local citizen, and you can search it at any of our computer terminals. For a small annual fee, you can become a society member, which gives you access to our digital library from your computer anytime you want.”
“Sounds like a bargain,” Harper said, and paid to become a member.
Constance handed her a membership card. “There’s our website address, and your passcode for the digitized collections.
We also have some papers from the Perles family in our manuscript collection, though I’m afraid there are only a few items. So few, in fact, that I suspect Soren Perles, or one of his servants, may have burned most of the family’s records and correspondence before he died.
That seems almost quaint, doesn’t it? Today we just hit ‘delete.’ ”
“I’d like to see the papers you do have, if I may,” Harper said.
Constance nodded. “First, though, I have something special to show you. You’re going to love this. Follow me.”
Harper followed the librarian to a room jammed with shelves full of boxes, books, journals, and miscellaneous items. Constance pulled out a set of large rolled-up papers, laid them on the wooden table in the center of the room, and unrolled one with a flourish.
“Madam Professor, I present to you: blueprints of the Perles Mansion.”
“The original blueprints?” Harper asked, looking for a date. “Surely not.”
“Not the original, no. According to lore, those were burned.”
“Along with the other family papers you mentioned?”
Constance hesitated, as though choosing her words carefully.
“No. Apparently, after the untimely deaths of the Perles family and then everything that happened with Soren and Isabel, some of the locals decided that the adobe used in its construction was cursed. In fact, there was an attempt to burn the building itself, but…”
“Brick doesn’t burn,” said Harper.
“Exactly.”
“When was this?”
“Right after Soren Perles’s body was found.
Long enough ago for there to have been local lore made up to explain the family’s bad luck.
” Constance gave a little shrug. “In any case, the building did not, in fact, burn, and these blueprints were drawn up much later by the historical society that saved the Perles Mansion from being demolished.” She tapped on a date noted in one corner. “In 1927, I believe.”
Harper studied the blueprints.
“Their goal was to renovate the building and use it as their headquarters,” Constance continued.
“Unfortunately, it was a disaster: One worker fell from the scaffolding and was severely injured, and another was found in the dining room dead of an apparent heart attack. The old lead pipes burst and flooded the place, causing considerable water damage, and then the renovation was paused after a small earthquake brought down part of one wall. The Great Depression was the coup de grace: Funding dried up, and the project was abandoned altogether.”
“And after that the building was left unoccupied?”
Constance nodded. “From what I’ve read, the historical society boarded the place up, but they kept finding the doors left open. Not just unlocked, but standing wide open.”
“Joel said unhoused people found refuge there,” Harper said. “That would explain the open doors.”
“Well, that’s another interesting thing about the Perles Mansion.
According to locals, the doors open and close of their own will.
Over the years, vagrants have been enticed by those open doors and tried to make themselves at home, but only one lasted more than a single night.
In the 1950s, a fellow calling himself Mack, after the Steinbeck character in Cannery Row, declared himself ‘king of the Perles Mansion.’ ”
“Dare I ask what happened to King Mack?”
“No one knows. He disappeared. There one day, gone the next. At least, that’s what the ghost stories allege. The mansion ate him, or something like that; the details are rarely made clear.”
“A carnivorous adobe mansion. I’ve heard stranger things.”
Constance laughed. “Of course, the truth is probably much less colorful: more likely Mack moved on to another abandoned building. And there are plenty of vacation rentals in town, so he might have found an empty one to squat in. He was known to have a drinking problem, and with all the coastal cliffs around here…really, anything could have happened.”
“When did the historical society sell the Perles Mansion?”
“Let’s see…” Constance plucked a large book off the shelf and started paging through it.
“Ah yes, here it is. The Perles Mansion was briefly owned by a contractor in the 1970s who wanted to turn the building into commercial office spaces, but didn’t get very far before running out of money.
And when Monterey was redeveloping and creating the conference center, there was a lot of debate about which historic buildings to keep and which to renovate.
Unreinforced adobe structures are not earthquake-safe, as I’m sure you know.
The old ones were well-built, and the bricks will last for centuries if protected from rain, but a good shake can bring them tumbling down.
That’s one reason they’re usually only one or two stories tall. ”
“Makes sense.”
“Now, this is interesting,” Contance continued. “Believe it or not, when Delilah Mason bought the place there were still some of the original furnishings in the home.”
“From the mid-1800s? After all those years and all those inhabitants? That seems…unusual.”
“Surprising, isn’t it? Apparently, a few pieces survived despite everything.
Quality craftsmanship, I suppose. That, and a bit of luck.
Delilah Mason shored up the building’s foundation, brought the electrical and plumbing systems up to code—that must have cost a pretty penny—and expanded the home a bit.
That worried me at first, because the Perles Mansion isn’t on the historical register and thus isn’t protected.
But Ms. Mason clearly loved the place; she used to come in here a lot, researching the home’s history.
She told me she left the original rooms largely intact and undisturbed, and she’s certainly poured a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into that property.
I would rather have seen it become a public building, but at least she appears to be respectful of its age. ”
“Or she used to be, anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t hear? I’m sorry to tell you, but Delilah Mason…died.”
The heavy book in Constance’s hands fell to the table with a loud thud. “She’s dead?”
“I’m afraid so. I’m sorry, I assumed you had heard already.”
Constance gave a vigorous shake of her head. “I’ve stopped following the news. Can’t deal with politics and I’ve never cared for social media. So, Delilah Mason is dead. Wow. What a shame. What happened?”
Harper hesitated. The radio and newspaper had not explained the circumstances of Delilah Mason’s death, or that she had been buried alive, and Detective Serrano had asked for discretion, so she chose her words carefully. “She was found in the garden—”
“The Séance Garden,” Constance said.
Harper nodded. “At the base of the tree.”
“Poor Delilah.”
You have no idea.
“Do they know what happened?”
Harper shook her head. “The police are investigating, but they’re keeping the details quiet for the moment.”
“That Séance Garden is probably the strongest evidence of local witchcraft, by the way,” said Constance. “There were a lot of rumors about Isabel Perles, and strange goings-on beneath that tree.”
“As in…?”
“Legend has it that she ‘went mad,’ as they said at the time. She was seen burying something at the base of the tree—which was much smaller back then, of course—and shortly thereafter burned all her fine dresses. Until then she had been quite the social butterfly, the belle of the ball. It was quite a shock to the community, even made the local paper. The paper’s searchable in the computer; you should look it up. ”
“Thanks, I’ll do that.”
“Even before, Isabel Perles was well known for being a spiritualist and holding séances. And afterward, there were rumors about her ‘doing witchcraft’ at the base of the tree. Hence the name…”
“The Witch Tree.” Harper nodded. “And the brother, Soren Perles, was a doctor?”
She nodded. “He graduated from Harvard Medical School, but there were some who doubted him.”
“How so?”