A Fright to the Death (16 page)

At lunchtime, I walked into the dining room after the knitters had already arrived. René had set up another buffet and Emmett was busy refilling serving platters. The knitters seemed subdued and were not chatting as animatedly as they had at other mealtimes. Finding a murder weapon among their things must have put a damper on their spirits.

I spotted Dad and Seth across the room and headed in their direction after filling my plate with beet salad, risotto, and grilled salmon.

I sat between them, feeling cowardly. I was still unsure of just how mad I felt about Mac snooping around behind my back. And Vi’s comment that he thought I would leave Crystal Haven bothered me. We hadn’t really talked much about the future—our future—but I thought he knew I planned to stay. And to give us a chance. I wasn’t ready to talk to him just yet and didn’t want to give him an opportunity to engage me in conversation. I planned to use my
human buffers to keep him at a distance. I glanced at Seth, who had nodded at me in between bites when I sat down.

Dad leaned over and whispered, “I’ve been keeping an eye on that maintenance guy.” It took me a moment to remember why he had it in for poor Kirk.

Dad didn’t like posers and he had pegged Kirk as a fake from the moment he fixed the generator.

“I know that everyone’s a suspect, but I really think he’s just new at this, Dad,” I said. “It doesn’t mean he’s up to anything.”

“Maybe, but I don’t like coincidence.” Dad tore off a piece of French bread and stuffed it in his mouth. He took a swig of water and continued. “Doesn’t it seem strange that that poor woman was killed right after the power went out
and
the man in charge of the generator is incompetent?”

I shrugged, letting Dad know I really didn’t want to engage much. Plus, my own suspicions were in a different camp entirely and I didn’t want to encourage Dad’s speculations.

“I saw him outside working on the snowblower,” Dad continued. “He had the whole thing torn apart and then he put it back together and got it working again—all in about ten minutes.”

I looked at Dad and must have appeared as clueless as I felt.

Dad huffed. “If he can fix a snowblower in a few minutes, how come he couldn’t fix the generator in many hours?”

“You think he
wanted
the power out all that time?” I said.

Seth leaned forward.

“Papa, if he wanted the power outage to give him a chance to kill someone, why wouldn’t he just fix it after he was done? There’s no reason to keep everyone in the dark and cold.”

I agreed with Seth. Kirk had seemed sincere in his efforts
to fix the generator. Plus, I was having a hard time imagining the guy who was assisting with the yarn bombing wielding a flashlight as a weapon.

“To deflect suspicion, of course. It’s clearly working on you two,” Dad said. “If he had conveniently fixed it later, then you would have suspected that he had left the power off on purpose to suit his nefarious schemes.”

“Nefarious?” Seth said.

I put my head down and smiled.

“It means—” Dad said.

“I know what it means,” Seth said and held up his hand. “Just seems like something Vi would say.”

Dad’s quick intake of breath indicated that Seth had wounded him with that remark.

“No offense,” Seth said and held up both hands.

“I would prefer not to be compared to that person,” Dad said stiffly.

“What’s the matter, dear?” Mom put her plate on the table across from Dad. “You look like you don’t feel well.”

Seth snickered and I put my hand on Dad’s back. “Dad’s still worked up over the generator,” I said.

“Not that again, Frank.” Mom sat and opened her napkin. “That poor man is doing his best. Not everyone can fix machinery the way you can.”

Dad seemed mollified at this and went back to his meal.

The conversation had started me thinking again. There were plenty of suspects and I was wondering how to narrow the list without tipping off Vi, when Mac and Lucille walked in.

He caught my eye and gave me a half smile. I knew that was his first attempt at an apology.

Vi breezed in and skipped the line to rush over to our table. “Have you told them?” she asked me.

I started shaking my head the moment she approached.
I didn’t want everyone knowing about our bargain, especially Mac, who I knew was only a few minutes away from joining us. I narrowed my eyes at her and tried as hard as I could to send her a message to keep quiet.

“Told us what?” Mom said.

“Um.” Vi hesitated. “Wally said there’s another storm due in this afternoon.”

Dad groaned and Mavis and Selma, who sat at the table next to us, joined in.

“When will we ever get out of here?” Mavis said.

Vi winked at me and turned her attention to Mavis.

“He says we’re looking at another six inches tonight. Kirk barely has the front walk cleared—I don’t know when we’ll be able to get out,” Vi said with more authority, and not sounding nearly as disappointed as the rest of us at this news.

“At least we have power and the phones are working again,” Selma said.

“And we have plenty of yarn,” Mom added. “In some ways this is like a knitter’s dream. Our real lives have to be put on hold and all we can do is knit. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished for a few days away from my real life. . . .”

“I’m sure the dead lady would disagree,” Seth said in my ear.

“Rose is right,” Vi said. “This is an opportunity—we are in a beautiful haunted castle in the middle of a winter wonderland, where we’re required to enjoy knitting.”

“Maybe Rose can get her tarot to tell us how long we’re going to be stuck here,” Lucille said as she joined us. She had obviously been listening while she visited the buffet.

Mac followed his mother and glanced around the table. The closest he could get was across the table and two seats down from me. His lips were a thin line and I knew the buffer of the rest of our group irritated him.

As soon as Seth finished his sandwich and pushed his plate away, I shoved my chair back and grabbed Seth’s elbow.

“See you all in a while!” I said. “We have to go walk the dogs.”

I hustled Seth out of the dining room. He balked as we passed the fresh tray of homemade macaroni and cheese. I felt slightly guilty since René had likely made it with Seth in mind.

“I wasn’t finished, Clyde,” Seth said, shaking my hand off his arm.

“You made three trips to the buffet,” I said. “I’m sure you can survive until dinner.”

“What’s the rush, anyway?” He rubbed his arm where I had gripped him as if he’d been mortally wounded.

“I have to talk to you.” I gestured down the hallway toward the front desk. It tended to be less crowded than the lounge since there was no fireplace and only a view of the piles of snow. The beauty of the snowcapped trees had lost its charm.

I led him to the couch that faced the desk and the hallway so I could be sure we wouldn’t be overheard.

“I’ve done something really stupid,” I said.

Seth cocked his head and settled back in the couch, a smile beginning on his lips.

“Don’t look so amused,” I said. “Vi could drive anyone to madness.”

Seth leaned forward and sighed. “What now?”

“I made a deal with her that if she figures out the mystery before I do, I will go into business with her.” I put my head in my hands, not wanting to see Seth’s reaction.

“You what?” Seth said.

I didn’t have to look at him to know his eyes were wide and his mouth hung open.

“You’ve been fighting them off for years,” he said. “And
now you’re just going to give in? Is it because you’ve learned stuff from Ms. Whittle and you want to test it out?”

“No, not a psychic business,” I said. “She wants to open a detective agency.”

“Oh, now
that
would be cool,” Seth said.

“What?” I said.

“You’re really good at solving mysteries.” Seth ticked his points off on his fingers. “You definitely have some kind of sixth sense, and it might keep Aunt Vi busy.”

I shook my head. “No, no, no. You don’t get it. Can you imagine the trouble I’ll deal with if I have to babysit Vi through ‘cases’ and keep Mac from killing us both? It will never work.”

“So, why did you agree?”

I stood up and walked to the window. “I don’t know. I was mad at Mac, and Vi was pressuring me with her theories and I just . . . didn’t think it through.”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Seth said. “Vi isn’t likely to win the bet and even if she does, you can wriggle out of it.”

I knew Seth was right. What bothered me the most, and what I didn’t share with him, was that I was starting to like the idea.

“Will you help me, Seth?” I said.

“Sure.”

“Keep an eye on Vi and let me know what she’s up to. Once we get an idea who might have killed Clarissa, I’m going to need you to steer her in the wrong direction.”

“You want me to spy on my great-aunt, and then mislead the poor woman?”

I tilted my head at him, feeling a bit guilty when he put it that way. Although, “poor woman” hardly applied to Vi. I shrugged and nodded.

“Okay,” he said. “We really do need to walk the dogs.”

The walk didn’t last long due to the weather, which had turned nasty again. The earlier sense that maybe we had seen the worst of it faded and I moved on to that sense of stoic tolerance that was necessary to get through a Michigan winter. Tuffy had been carried most of the way home. Even when Seth shoveled an area for him to walk in, he didn’t like the snow or the cold feel of ice on his feet. He walked along shaking each foot as if he could brush off the cold and finally started limping on all four feet. Not easy to do. Even Baxter seemed to roll his eyes at the dramatic display.

The wind had picked up again and the temperature had dropped. I couldn’t believe we would get even more snow. We brought the dogs back to the cottage and brushed as much of the cold stuff as possible off of them before letting them inside. I grabbed the door as it flew inward with a gust of frosty air. We hurried inside and unclipped the leashes.

Tuffy sat and shivered, glowering at both of us from under
his fringe. He tended to blame me for almost everything, but this time he included Seth in his disgruntlement.

A walk in the winter weather, on the other hand, had rejuvenated Baxter. He raced through the cottage on a continuous loop while Seth chased behind him with a towel. Baxter sideswiped me a couple of times, which was his way of inviting me to chase him.

Tuffy sighed, lay down on the front door carpet, and watched. Baxter calmed down a bit and then took up sentinel duty at the door to Seth’s room and barked. When we ignored him, he barked again, a bit more sharply. Baxter usually left the barking to Tuffy, so I approached him to see what was bothering him. He backed away from me, moving farther into the room, threw himself on the floor, and moaned.

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked Seth.

“I’m not sure.” Seth knelt next to Baxter and rubbed his ears. “He’s not really giving me much to go on. He just feels uncomfortable.” Seth felt along Baxter’s legs to see if he had hurt himself during his mad dash through the cottage.

Seth stood up quickly and backed away.

“What is it?”

Seth shook his head and crossed his arms.

“He thinks there’s something under the floor.”

“What?” I moved toward Baxter and sat next to him. “What does that mean?”

Baxter dropped his heavy head onto my legs and crawled forward as if he thought he would fit in my lap.

“I don’t know. Like I said before, he acted funny in here last night. He kept skirting around that area, but now he’s planted himself right on it.”

The cottage had wood floors with large throw rugs in each room. I managed to stand up again even with Baxter
pressing his chin into my knees and he quickly jumped up as well and stood looking at me with a big doggy smile.

I knelt back down and felt the floor where Baxter had been sitting. I hadn’t been trying to sense anything but an image of a dim tunnel popped into my mind. I saw a wooden door at the end and pulled my hands away before I saw any more. I felt slightly nauseated.

Seth knelt next to me.

“Are you okay?”

Baxter pushed his forehead into my shoulder.

“Just dizzy for a second,” I said. “I think Baxter might be onto something.”

I pushed myself up to stand and patted Baxter’s head. “Let’s pull this carpet back and see what’s bothering him,” I said, fearful of what we might find.

Seth and I shifted the bed to the far edge of the room and rolled the carpet toward the bed.

The floor underneath the rug was slightly darker, and less scratched, but otherwise looked the same. I didn’t understand—the tunnel had seemed so clear. I still had a lot of work to do before I could rely on any other senses. I started to push the roll of carpet away from the bed and back toward the wall, when Seth stuck his foot out to block it.

“What’s that?” He pointed to a spot on the floor that seemed to coincide with where Baxter had been sitting when the rug was flat.

I pushed the bed a little more and we both rolled the thick carpet farther.

We revealed a square cutout with a recessed ring in the middle. It was perfectly flat. Seth pushed on a tab near the ring and it raised just enough to be able to grip it and pull it out.

“Wicked,” Seth breathed. “I think this is a trapdoor.”

We wrestled the carpet all the way off the door and stood
looking down at a metal ring that was right in the middle of a square cut in the floor.

Baxter barked and wagged his tail. Tuffy came in cautiously and lurked in the doorway, whining.

Before I could stop him, Seth grabbed the ring and pulled. Nothing happened.

I told Seth to stand back and grabbed the ring and pulled. Still nothing. I couldn’t see any hinges and wasn’t sure which way to pull. When I tried pulling in a different direction, I felt the ring swivel.

Seth must have seen it move. He pushed my hand away, gripped the ring, and twisted. We heard a loud squeak of metal on metal and then a click like a lock tumbling into place.

We pulled together on the ring and watched as the trapdoor opened. Baxter rushed forward and stuck his nose in the crack, breathing deeply. Tuffy’s whining got louder.

I peered into the opening and caught a whiff of damp air. Seth and I leaned over the opening and saw a rope ladder hanging into the darkness below. The mid-afternoon light, a faded gray due to the impending storm, had crept in through the small window and cast a weak silver-blue patina on everything in the room. It only penetrated a foot or two into the opening.

Seth went to his duffel bag and pulled out a flashlight and a headlamp.

I looked at him with one eyebrow raised.

“What?” he asked.

“Do you always carry flashlights in your duffel?”

He flashed the Boy Scout hand signal. “Be prepared—that’s my motto. Especially if Papa is involved.” He switched on the light. “What are we waiting for?”

I grabbed Seth’s arm to stop him from climbing down the ladder.

“No. You stay here. We don’t know what’s down there. And someone has to watch them.” I jerked my head in the direction of the dogs. No surprise that Tuffy cowered in the corner, but Baxter was right next to him. A low growl emanated from Baxter’s large chest.

Seth rolled his eyes and leaned into the opening to shine the light into the gloom.

“They’re just overreacting,” Seth said. His voice sounded hollow as he hung his head into the opening. “It looks like there’s a tunnel down there.”

I knelt next to Seth and Baxter whined.

I started to wonder just how many secrets there were in this castle. Realizing that if Vi had discovered the trapdoor, she would already be down there, I finally convinced myself to climb down the ladder. She’d be harassing us for “dillydallying.”

“Okay, I’ll go check it out,” I said.

“What about the dogs?” he asked.

“What about them?” I put one foot on the ladder and gently eased my weight onto it. It held.

“They might fall in if we’re down there.”

My left foot was below my right, feeling for the next rung. I stopped.

“That’s why you’re staying here,” I said. “It might be dangerous and you need to watch the dogs.”

“Awww, man,” Seth said.

“Hold the flashlight on the ladder so I can see what I’m doing—then you can toss it down to me.”

He held the flashlight as I asked. When I reached the bottom, I heard scrabbling and squeaking and figured I had disturbed some rodent in his daily rounds. Mice don’t bother me much. Rats are another matter. And I knew there would be spiders. There are always spiders.

“Okay, toss the light,” I said. My voice echoed off the sides of the tunnel.

He dropped it down to me. “What’s down there?”

I shone the light in one direction and found a wall about three feet from where I stood. The other direction, which led toward the castle, did indeed have a dim gray tunnel that disappeared into the gloom at the edge of my flashlight beam.

“There’s a tunnel, and I think it leads to the castle,” I said.

“Wicked,” Seth said. His voice sounded very close and I looked up to see him hanging his head into the opening again.

“I’ll be back in a couple minutes—stay there,” I said.

Seth sighed dramatically.

I was in a tunnel under the ground between the cottage and the hotel. I remembered Vi asking Jessica about Prohibition and rumrunners. Maybe the rumors were true and there was a secret hiding place. I walked slowly, shining the light along both sides of the tunnel to be sure there weren’t any doors or off-shoots. I had been counting steps and when I got to fifty the tunnel ended in a wooden door. There was a heavy metal ring where a doorknob should be. I pulled on the ring and the door didn’t budge. I heard a scrape on the floor behind me. It sounded bigger than a rat. I spun around, raised the flashlight to strike if necessary, and saw Seth.

“I told you to stay there,” I said. I put one hand on my hip and used the other to shine the light in his face. “You never listen to me.”

He put his hands up like he was under arrest. “I listen all the time,” he said. “I’ll bet my percentage is better than ninety percent—that’s an ‘A’ in listening.” He grinned.

“What did you do with the dogs?” I lowered the light.

“I put them in the living room and closed the door so they wouldn’t fall in.”

“All right,” I sighed. “I think this is the end anyway.” I gestured at the door. “It won’t open.”

Seth reached out and pulled on the ring. The door didn’t move. I grabbed hold and we both pulled. Then we pulled and leaned all of our combined weight into the job. A scraping sound of stone on metal accompanied the slow movement of the door.

We opened it just far enough to squeeze through and found ourselves in the basement of the hotel. It didn’t look like it was a well-used area. Cast-off furniture and household items lined the narrow hall. There was a gap in the junk just ahead of us.

Another wooden door greeted us. Seth and I repeated our earlier exercise and almost fell on top of each other when the door swung easily.

“Wicked,” Seth said when he saw what was inside.

The room was about ten by ten feet. It contained a table and one chair, and at least ten boxes of cell phones. They seemed to be organized by type. Several boxes of iPhones sat next to Android versions. There was even a small box of BlackBerries.
VERTEX WHOLESALE
was stamped in large block letters on the side of each box.

“Whoa!” said Seth. “Are these all stolen?”

“I think so,” I whispered.

It had been all over the news just before Christmas. Vertex Wholesale had been busted for purchasing stolen cell phones. According to reports, the storefront was known in the Detroit neighborhood as a place to get cash for phones, no questions asked. Police had raided the store and there were rumors that there was a connection to Kalamazoo. Seth and I had just stumbled onto the connection.

Seth stepped forward with his hand out toward a box. I grabbed him by the hood of his sweatshirt and stopped him.

“Don’t touch anything,” I said.

I shrugged off Vi’s sweater and used it to pick up one of the phones. I chose a BlackBerry since it had buttons and carefully turned on one of the phones. It had been wiped clean of data.

Seth pointed to a printed stack of papers on the table. They listed cell phone brands, number of units, and prices. There was another column listing possible destinations. “Looks like your murder mystery just got a lot more complicated,” he said.

I nodded absently, trying to fit this piece of the puzzle into everything else we knew. The dollar amounts were big enough to be a motive for all sorts of crimes.

“I’ve heard it’s a big deal,” he continued. “They sell for way more overseas than here. The gangs steal them from Americans and ship them to Japan or Europe, where they can get hundreds of dollars for each one.”

I turned to him. “How do you know about all this?”

He lifted one shoulder. “I grew up in New York City. I’ve seen black-market dealers—usually the stuff is fake, though. Plus, I looked it up online after that police bust in December.”

“We better get out of here, Seth,” I said, and placed the phone back in the box.

Just as we turned to head out of the room, the door slowly swung inward and clicked shut. Seth and I ran to the door and pounded on it.

“Hey, let us out!” Seth shouted.

I wasn’t sure our pounding could even be heard on the other side of the heavy door, much less Seth’s pleas for release.

“Now what?” Seth said as he gave up on his hammering of the door.

“For one thing, I think I’ll listen to Baxter a bit more,” I said. “He really didn’t want us to come down here.”

Seth’s face was white and his brows were scrunched together.

I put an arm over his shoulder. “Someone will find us.”

I just hoped it was a friend and not the person who had put these phones here.