A Game of Greed and Deception: A Mystery Drama (7 page)

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Tammy set the lantern on the
coffee table to examine it. There was a handle on the top to carry it with and
a knob at the bottom. She removed a glass encasing from the base of the
lantern. Then she turned the knob on the base and a small wick extended
upwards. The base seemed to already be filled with oil. She took her lighter,
lit the wick, and the lantern burned brightly. She adjusted the height of the
wick so that the flame was not too high, and replaced the glass encasing.

Tammy
went into the walk-in closet. The stools were as she had left them, keeping the
thick, pinewood door secured. She removed the stools one at a time and set them
aside. She turned the handle and opened the door. She looked at the stone
stairway leading downward. With the lantern in one hand and her heart pumping
quickly she started to walk down the stairs, making sure to leave the door open
behind her.

SEVEN

The stairs were narrow and
turned to the right as they descended. When she got to the bottom of them,
Tammy noticed right away the particular flooring. Carefully placed red slate
tiles had been laid down and sealed with grout to form a walkway. The tiles
were old but in very good condition. She stepped slowly along the narrow path
and felt the air to be a bit warmer and drier than throughout the rest of the
cabin. Looking up, she saw a ceiling that curved from left to right in the
shape of an arch. It had been meticulously crafted from bricks of all different
sizes. The walls were made from a hard, charcoal colored clay. The walkway
gradually sloped downward until it ended at a red brick archway which led into
a larger room. Tammy slowly entered the room and set the lantern down to have a
look around.

The
ceiling was made of the same multi-shaped brick layout, but with less of a
curvature. In the back of the ceiling were three foil-covered air ducts heading
in different directions. Also hanging from some hooks in the center of the
ceiling were several large portions of meat that had been seasoned, wrapped in
cheesecloth, and left to cure. Tammy went up and smelled the meats. They were
dried and in excellent condition, ready to eat.

On
either side of the walls there were smaller bricks put together to form a
series of storage units, which seemed to mostly be empty. The outside of these
cubby holes was covered with dust. She looked into some of the small units and
saw mostly just more dust and some spider webs. One of them had a few bits of
broken glass inside, and in another there was a metal vice.

Against
the back wall there were some large barrels stacked one on top of the other all
the way to the ceiling of the room. The barrels were covered with a thick, grey
blanket of dust that must have been accumulating for some time. Tammy wiped off
the barrels one at a time to have a better look at them. The strips of metal
holding the barrels together were completely rusted out, and the wood in
between looked rather rotted.
So this is
the old wine cellar. Those barrels are ancient and it looks like nobody has
stored any wine down here in a long time. So then how long have those pieces of
meat been hanging out to cure?

Next
to the barrels was a HVAC unit. The unit looked fairly new and in good working
condition. It connected to the air ducts in the ceiling, but two of the three
ducts had been damaged – cut in half down the middle. Warm air was blowing into
the room through the openings made from the cuts. The remaining smallest duct
was still connected to the unit. Tammy felt a rush of nervous energy from
seeing that the heating ducts were damaged.
Someone
had to have sabotaged the heating from down here, but left one duct working to
heat the den. But why? I need to know how the hell they could’ve gotten down
here and back upstairs without me seeing them.

Tammy
turned to the center of the room to see an old wooden table made from barked
pine logs. On top of the table was a small cherry wood box. She opened the box
and inside was a package of Alec Bradley Prensado Churchill Cigars. Tammy felt
a chill knowing that her husband enjoyed a fine cigar, although she had not
remembered him packing any in his luggage. The cigar box had already been
opened and several of the cigars were missing. In the space where the other
cigars had been there was a metal lighter engraved with the initials “SW”.
Tammy recalled the moment when Steven had received this lighter as a gift on
his last birthday. Her heart was racing and she whisked her head around to make
sure that nobody else was there.

Holy hell, so Stephen HAS been inside the
cabin!
That son of a
bitch. But how the hell did he get down here without me seeing him? And why did
he go back outside? He must not be hurt at all and is up to something. He would
never just leave his lighter here by accident. He wanted me to know that he was
here.
She nibbled on the tip of her painted fingernail.
I need to figure out what the fuck he’s up to. Don’t be scared, Tammy.
There ain’t no way he is daring enough to hurt you. I can explain this all as
an accident anyways. I never even touched anything on the car.
She quickly
put the lighter into her pocket.

Tammy
needed to calm herself down. She reached up to move one of the barrels to sit
on. It was lighter than it looked. Using her fingertips, she slid the barrel
along from on top of the others and caught it in her arms. She set it on the
floor, sat down, and lit a cigarette. While taking a puff of her
Capri
, she looked towards the far right corner of the
room just next to the rest of the barrels. There were two canisters sitting on
top of a tightly-roped bale of hay. One was marked “propane fuel” and the other
“hydrogen gas”. A pile of hay had been scattered about in front of the bale.
Tammy set her cigarette on the edge of the table, and got closer to the pile of
hay on the floor.

She
reached out to grab the canister of propane and stepped forward. Her foot
suddenly fell through a hole in the floor that had been covered by the hay. One
of her finger nails broke off as she lost her balance, but she was able to grab
and push off with one of the barrels. Tammy screamed wildly as she fell to the
floor. Her head stung from the collision but after a few moments she realized
that she was not really hurt. She crawled slowly to the hole in the floor and
looked inside.

Sharp
rusty spikes were jutting up from the bottom of a dangerous pit. Disoriented,
Tammy ran her hands through her long hair while biting the jagged edge of the
broken nail.
What in the hell is this?
Did
Stephen set this booby trap up while
I was sleeping last night? I can’t believe that the bastard is actually trying
to kill me! But how does he know what I’d planned to do? When did he find out?
And where the hell did he get that trap from?

Maria,
hearing her stepmother’s screams, ran into the closet and stood in front of the
open door at the top of the stairs. “Tammy – are you down there?” She didn’t
get a reply. She leaned into the opening of the stairwell cupping her hands
over her mouth and spoke louder. “Tammy, can you hear me?”

Tammy
turned her head towards the sound of Maria’s voice. “Maria – don’t come down here!
Stay where you are and I’ll be coming up in a dang moment.”

“But
what’s happening? I heard you scream.”

“I’m
fine, I just slipped and fell. Just get away from that door and wait until I
come upstairs. Do you hear me? Do as I tell you to dammit!” Tammy’s tone was
irritated and abrasive.

“Fine!
Stay down there then.” Maria slammed the pine door shut as she left the closet.

Tammy
took a few deep breaths to relax and grabbed her lit cigarette. She stood up on
her toes to have a closer look at the severed HVAC ducts. She was not exactly
mechanically inclined and they looked to be beyond repair. She took the lantern
from the table. As she was leaving the room, she gazed hungrily at the
delicious looking meats, but thought better about daring to eat any of them.
She walked up the stairs, opened the door, and went back into the large closet.
She closed the door to the stairwell but did not try to block it, confident
that there was no way that anyone could get into the wine cellar from outside.

Back
in the living room, Tammy called out to Maria. “Would you come in here please,
I want to talk with you.” Maria came into the living room and sat on the sofa.
“I’ve got some troubling news and I need you to pay very close attention to
what I’m saying. Got it?”

Maria
nodded.

“Your
father has done gone crazy. You know that he left in the car and never came
back. Well, I think he did that on purpose. He must’ve brought us up here to
hurt us, do you understand me? He isn’t lost at all.” Tammy’s hands shook a bit
as she spoke. “If he had any kind of accident with the car, we would have done
heard from him by now. He was in the cabin last night and went down into that
wine cellar. He snuck around while we were sleeping. Do you understand me,
Maria?”

Maria
looked perplexed. “But why would he sneak inside the cabin without saying
anything?”

“I’m
afraid that he’s planning something terrible for the both of us and wants to
hurt us.”

Maria
jerked her head back in disbelief. “Are you crazy, Tammy? Have you even seen
dad? Where is he and why would he want to hurt us?”

Tammy
shrugged. “I’ve been asking myself the same dang thing. I think he planned this
entire weekend to do something awful. Look, I found his signature lighter down
in the wine cellar. There ain’t no other way that would be there if he hadn’t
gone down there. And I think he was the one that put the cinder block down the
chimney, which almost made us die from smoke inhalation. That block didn’t just
fall on its own. I don’t know what else to tell you, Maria. I haven’t seen him
but he’s been inside the cabin. If he didn’t want to hurt us, then why has he
been sneaking around like that?”

Maria
looked up at Tammy with a sneer. “It was your big idea to come here in the
first place, Tammy. Maybe dad doesn’t want to be here with you. Maybe he just
doesn’t trust you. Did you ever think of that?”

Tammy
turned her palms up with a look of perplexity on her face. “So then if he loves
you so much, why isn’t he coming in to check on his daughter? Why would he
leave you here freezing in the cold? It wouldn’t make any sense unless he’s
just completely lost all of his marbles. Don’t argue with me Maria. We have no
choice but to defend ourselves, even if that means taking desperate action.”

“Defend
ourselves from
WHAT
? If you didn’t
even see him how do you know where he is? Don’t you dare hurt dad. When are the
police gonna get here?” Maria shouted at Tammy sitting on the edge of the sofa
cushion.

Tammy
walked closer to Maria and put her foot on the sofa cushion next to her. She
carefully rolled up her pant leg and unwrapped the gauze bandage. Maria cringed
at seeing the swelling in the calf and dried blood. “Do you see this fucking
wound? That was from an animal trap that your father must have put outside the
cabin to hurt me. And down in the wine cellar, the heating ducts have been cut
which is why there is no heat coming inside the cabin. Who do you think cut
them, Maria?”

“How should
I know! But dad wouldn’t...”

“He’s
not inside the cabin here with us, so how do you know what he would do? And
then there is also a covered pit full of spikes that damn near killed me. He
set this deadly trap up in the wine cellar and covered it up with hay so that I
would fall into it. Is that enough evidence for you? He brought me out here to
murder me.”

Maria
scowled at Tammy. “But how do you even
KNOW
dad did those things if you didn’t see him? Maybe someone else is out there and
did something to awful to him!”

“There
ain’t nobody else that would be out here in this kind of snowstorm, Maria. And
finding his dang lighter down in the wine cellar was proof that he came
inside.”

Maria
looked up angrily and stared Tammy right in the eye. “If you are so sure that
dad is out there, then go find him. And was dad the one who killed the white
owl with your nail file, Tammy?”

Tammy
wrapped the gauze bandage back around her leg and squinted with a look of
disbelief. “What white owl?”

“The
one on the roof just outside my bedroom window. Its eye was pierced. Someone
stabbed it and killed it.”

“I
have no damn idea what you are talking about, Maria. Whoever did that was
probably the same person who killed the fox that I saw outside in the woods –
your father.”

“I
saw the owl when I looked outside my bedroom window. It was killed with a
purple and pink nail file, just like the one you carry in your purse.”

“Then
that just proves that Stephen is outside wanting to harm us! He must have taken
the file from my purse after dinner. He used something of mine to make it seem
like I did it. How would I even go out and catch an owl, Maria? Do you honestly
think I’m able to do that?”

“Ok
Tammy, whatever you say.” Maria spoke incredulously. “Why would dad want to be
stuck out in the cold anyways? And why wouldn’t he say something to me if he
was out to get you?” Maria quickly got up from the sofa and started to walk
away.

Tammy
grabbed her by the arm. “Don’t you walk away from me, little lady. We are not
done talking yet.”

Maria
jerked her arm away from Tammy. “Don’t you dare touch me! My dad and I are
closer than anyone. We never had any problems until now that you came into our
life.”

Tammy
smirked. “Well we obviously have a problem now. And if you are so sure that he
wouldn’t hurt you, then why don’t we find out. I’ll just tell you when I need
you and what I want you to do.”

“Oh
will you now, Tammy? I think you need to take your headache medication again.”
Maria stood in the doorway to her bedroom giving Tammy a dead stare. Then she
turned abruptly, went inside, and slammed the door behind her.