Antiques Fate (19 page)

I was about to discuss that with her when Sushi darted by, disappearing down the steps.

My frantic calls for her to come back were met with silence.

“Now we
have
to go down there, dear,” Mother said.

“No discussion necessary. I'll fetch a torch.”

She meant flashlight, but the only one on the workbench was the dead flash I'd been given to locate hats in the dark. But we did find some candles and matches, and took those.

Before we committed to the Sushi hunt, however, I made sure the door could be opened from the other side, while Mother—taking an extra precaution so we all wouldn't be entombed—propped the panel door open with her purse.

And down we went, Mother maddeningly counting each step out loud, twenty-one in all. At the bottom, we halted, our candle flames flicking from a slight breeze caused by the open door above. Ahead, a narrow passageway, forged from the rock, stretched into blackness.

“The
tunnels
do exist!” Mother said. “Just as Millie said—like the real Old Vic!”

I called out to Sushi and my echo called back.

And so did a quick, sharp bark.

With Mother behind me, I moved forward slowly on the uneven cobblestone floor, my candle illuminating only a few yards ahead.

As Sushi's beaconlike barking told me I was growing ever closer to her, a sudden rush of air blew through the passage . . . and my candle went out!

I stumbled badly, belly-flopping to the hard stone floor, where I lay stunned.

Mother, her candle still lit, loomed over me, the angles of her face highlighted in orange. “So he didn't leave town, after all, dear.”

I rolled over and looked into the open but very dead eyes of Chad Marlowe.

 

 

Over time, items that have been donated to theaters for set-dressing and props can become valuable and should be insured against fire or theft. On the other hand, when Mother tried to insure her vocal chords with Lloyd's of London, the Serenity Playhouse refused to pony up the $27.50 per annum.

Chapter Eleven

Is This a Dagger Which I See Before Me?

S
crambling to my feet and backing up, I bumped into a rock wall, but at least I didn't scream. Still, I think looking into the dead eyes of a corpse excuses any girly reaction I might have had.

Mother came over and lighted my candle with hers—I'd somehow managed to hold on to mine.

“Well,” she said, “I guess that rules out Chad.”

“Mother,” I said, my breath coming tremulously, “we need to get out of here. The real killer could be
anywhere
.”

“My instinct is our culprit has fled. Let's take a moment to gather ourselves—all right?—and have a closer look.”

Swallowing, I went over and knelt and held a candle over Chad's body, the flame leaping in my unsteady hand. Sushi was staying close beside me. I thought she might go over and start sniffing the body, but she didn't. Mother crouched and examined the fatal wound on the young man's chest, not touching it, eyes only. In Chad's limp right hand was a weapon, a revolver.

“He's been stabbed,” she concluded, and gestured for me to give her my free hand, which I did.

Helping her to her feet, I asked her, “Any idea how long ago that was?”

“About twelve hours, judging by the advanced stage of rigor mortis. So I was right in assuming our murderer is long gone.”

My nerves were settling. “Well, obviously, this must have happened
after
Chad tried to run us down last night.”

In the flickering candlelight, Mother's narrow-eyed expression was all grooves and angles. “If indeed it
was
Chad behind the wheel. Any of our suspects could have been driving.”

I pointed. “What about that gun in his hand?”

“A prop gun, dear.”

“It certainly looks real.”

“It is, in a way—it's a blank pistol. We've used them at the playhouse, remember?”

Such fake weapons used plastic wads instead of bullets, but could be just as deadly if shot at close range. Gifted actor Brandon Lee lost his life that way, and others have, too.

I asked, “Do you know if it's been fired?”

“Not without examining it. Bend over and sniff the barrel, dear, but don't touch it.”

“You want
me
to bend over and sniff the barrel.”

“I believe that's what I said. Or perhaps there's an echo down here.”

Mother rarely employs sarcasm, so I knew she meant business. I knelt. Sniffed. Something brushed my cheek and gave me a start—Sushi! Seeing me sniffing that gun barrel made her think she missed something, and she had a brief sniff, too, then backed away, unimpressed.

“I don't smell anything,” I said, “and neither does Soosh, apparently. That thing must not have been fired, although if Chad's been dead for twelve hours, maybe I wouldn't smell anything by now.”

“Oh, I think you would,” Mother said. “You'd still get a pungent scorched bouquet. And Sushi would be down there sniffing away.”

We were a few feet from the body, regarding it in the orange glow of our two candles. The dead artistic director did not seem exactly real. But he was. He was.

I asked, “What do you think happened here?”

Mother, not missing a beat, replied, “The theatrical gun indicates that Chad didn't trust whomever he was meeting in the tunnel, so he took along what was handy, in the prop room.” She paused. “But it may have backfired on him—metaphorically, not literally.”

“How so?”

“The prop gun is so realistic looking, it may have inspired the killer to strike first.”

I was frowning and my stomach was going up and down, as if it were at the end of a diving board, trying to get the nerve to jump in. “Mother? There's something
really
upsetting about this. . . .”

“Well, of course there is, dear. Murder is always upsetting, particularly to the victim . . . unless of course it occurs before the victim knows what's happening.”

“That's not what I mean.”

“Oh. Well, finding Chad this way gave
me
a start, too. Think nothing of it.”

“No, that's not it, either.”

Mother cocked her head. “What then?”

“I'm afraid we've been sticking our collective noses into homicides so often these past few years, with Sushi part of the mix, that we've turned her into a . . . a
cadaver
dog. That wasn't a rat behind the wall she smelled, it was Chad.”

Mother shrugged, unconcerned. “Well, the poor dead boy
was
something of a rat, but I do get your drift. Might I suggest, however, that we table this discussion to a later, more opportune time?”

“Good point. Anyway, you need to call Rudder.”

She nodded. “I believe there would be no harm in that. I've seen all I need to.”

Since Mother had left her cell phone in her purse, propping open the door to the passageway, I got my cell out of my little bag. But down here deep in this tunnel, I couldn't get a signal. So I reached down to pick up Sushi, who'd been sticking close to me, tucked her in the carrier, and we retreated topside.

There, we extinguished our candles, and Mother retrieved her phone, though she left her purse in place as a doorstop.

“Sheriff Rudder? Vivian here.”

She had him on speaker for my benefit, so I heard him growl, “Yes, I know it's you, Vivian. I saw the caller ID again. What is it now?”

“Might I suggest you pack an overnight bag?”

“What?”

“There has been another suspicious death.”

“People pass away every day, Vivian, and there's nothing inherently suspicious about it.”

“Well, it's inherently suspicious if they've been stabbed to death, isn't it?”

“If this is some kind of a sick joke, just to lure me there to listen to your crackpot theories—”

I spoke up. “Sheriff, this is Brandy. It's no joke. Chad Marlowe has been stabbed and he's dead all right, probably for ten or twelve hours. We discovered him in the tunnel under the theater.”

A long pause while he tried to process all of that. “Tunnel? What are you talking about, a tunnel? Under the
theater
?”

“We didn't imagine it,” I said. “It's quite real. Just get to the New Vic as soon as you can. A lobby door will be unlocked, and we'll be backstage.”

Mother asked the cell, “Where are you, good sir?”

“Where do you think, Vivian? Serenity.”

“So we should expect you in around an hour?”

“More or less.”

“Thank you, Sheriff. Your professionalism is most appreciated.” She clicked off.

I put my hands on my hips. “I
know
that voice—what are you up to? Appreciate his professionalism—are you kidding?”

She gave me that eyebrows-lifted, imperious look. “Why must I be ‘up to' anything, child? Must I
always
be up to something?”

“Apparently,” I said, and I would swear Sushi, riding my chest, nodded.

Mother shifted her stance. “I merely inquired about the sheriff's ETA because I wanted to know how much time we'll have to explore the tunnel.”

Now my eyebrows lifted. “How much time we'll have is irrelevant, because there is no way we are exploring
any
tunnel. There's a dead man down there!”

“Who can obviously do us no harm.” She put a hand on my shoulder, and Sushi frowned suspiciously. “Dear, you know very well that our sheriff will close that tunnel off as a crime scene—a crime scene that we will be forbidden to visit. The hour the sheriff has given us—”

“He didn't ‘give' us an hour. He's an hour away!”

“The hour the sheriff has
provided
us represents our only chance to see where that tunnel leads.”

“What if the killer is still down there?”

“After twelve hours? Highly unlikely, dear.”

I was shaking my head. “I'm not going back down there. It's dark and it's creepy and it's dangerous.”

Sushi was listening in her carrier, her head ping-ponging between us.

Mother sighed. “Very well. Your mother will go by herself.”

“Bye.”

“Perhaps you feel a woman of advanced years with artificial hips and limited eyesight will be perfectly safe, mounting such an endeavor.”

Mother playing the age card—she
was
desperate.

She relit her candle, walked to the tunnel door, and paused dramatically. “Farewell, dear. Let me look at you and that darling dog for a moment. Fix you in my mind.”

Sushi, wanting to go with Mother, was trying to squirm out of the carrier.

I put the dog down and she scurried over to her other mistress, eager for adventure.

“You two have fun,” I said.

“Fun isn't the goal,” Mother said. “Stopping a fiend is.”

“Brother, Mother. You're really pulling out the stops. Okay, all right, let's go!” I took my candle over to Mother, relit it off hers, and followed her back down the stone stairs.

As we walked, the light of our candles played eerily off the walls.

“Why do you suppose this tunnel was put in, Mother, and when?”

“Possibly when the theater was built, as part of the effort to mirror the original Vic's tunnel system.”

Orange and yellow ghosts danced along the rocky passageway.

I asked, “Where do you suppose it leads?”

“That's what I hope to discover. The Old Vic originals were British railway lines dating to the eighteen hundreds.”

“Surely there must have been a more practical reason for the construction of this tunnel than duplicating the real theater.”

It was like the places where the rough walls embraced our candle glow were on fire, as if we were walking down a flaming passageway.

“Well, in Prohibition days,” she said, playing tour guide, “Old York was said to have done quite a bootleg business. I believe the Horse and Groom was a rather notorious speakeasy pub, back then.”

“I would think this went back longer ago than that.”

Mother shrugged. “Possibly. Perhaps it was part of the Underground Railroad. Abolitionists were active in Iowa, way back when.”

We were to Chad now. Mother gave him barely a glance, though as she passed, she did say, “Pardon us,” and make the sign of the cross, even though she wasn't Catholic. I couldn't keep from looking at the poor young corpse as I skirted it, Sushi craning for a look from the carrier.

We pressed on for perhaps five minutes, then came to a circular area about twelve feet in circumference, off of which three more tunnels flowed. Our candle flames jumped and danced on the irregular walls as we turned in a circle, taking it in.

“We could get really lost doing this,” I warned. Sushi was getting squirmy, so I set her down. She'd stay close to us.

“Not if we're systematic,” Mother replied confidently. “We'll explore the right tunnel, come back to the circle, then take the middle tunnel, come back, and finally the left one.”

“Okay. But if there are off-shoots? We don't follow them, all right? Mother?”

“Agreed.”

We started into the tunnel on the right of where we'd emerged, and I took the lead, shielding my candle flame with a hand. Sushi was right behind me, and Mother brought up the rear. I did not relish taking point, but it was one way to make Mother keep her word, should an off-shoot tunnel present itself.

We moved slowly, the tunnel at times becoming more narrow, the walls even rockier, and I fought an ever-increasing feeling of claustrophobia. After about ten minutes of this, with me about to suggest turning back, stone steps suddenly rose before us.

“Wait here,” I told Mother. “Let me scout ahead, all right?”

“All right. But be careful, dear. Stay close to the candle. The stairway can be . . .
treach
-erous.”

“Mother, no
Young Frankenstein
quoting. None.”

“It just came out, dear.”

“Well, don't. Sushi, stay!”

The dog did as I asked for once, huddling near Mother's shoes.

At the top of the stone stairs was a wooden panel, about four feet by four. My free hand searched its edges for a button similar to the one on the theater's tunnel door, but found none. Pushing on the panel brought no results, either, nor was there any way I could find an edge to pull it toward me.

“Try sliding it, dear. That always works in the Bowery Boys movies.”

Mother was standing a few steps below me, Sushi just behind her.

“Mother!”
I said. “Don't scare somebody at the top of stone stairs with no banister!”

“A banister would indeed be difficult to carve from stone,” she said reflectively.

Why do I bother?

My sigh was half shudder as I handed her my candle, then placed both hands flat on the panel, and it slid easily to the left. Maybe I'd have known that if I'd ever seen a Bowery Boys movie.

I ducked and went through, and found myself behind the altar of the church.

Mother, having joined me, whispered, “I suspected we were heading in this direction.”

I whispered back, “You know what this means.... Chad wasn't the
only
one who could have left the theater without being seen. Anyone who knows about these tunnels could have sneaked over here and dealt with Fred.”

“Yes, dear. I've made similar assumptions. We mustn't tarry—the sheriff is on his way.”