Old School Bones (10 page)

“DAMN, we have less than a half hour before I told the dean you would be back at Beedle Cottage, Gracie.” She sweeps the floor of the Hibernia House common room cautiously with the flashlight beam, even though they drew the shades on all the top floor windows twenty minutes ago.

“We’ve been through all of this, twice. Not a sign of a hidden room.”

“Maybe Kevin’s brother was wrong.”

Gracie drops onto the couch. “What about the attic?”

“There’s a hatch above the landing in the stairwell. We’ll need a ladder.”

“I’ll just stand on a desk,” says Michael. He already has one in his arms and is lugging it out into the stairwell.

A second later he is mounted atop the desk. With his arms extended, he pushes up on the overhead hatch, slides it out of the way. But even standing on his tip toes he is eighteen inches short of being able to see into the attic.

“Give me a boost, Michael.” Gracie clambers onto the desk. “Come on!”

He makes a stirrup for her foot with his hands. She puts her hands on his shoulders for balance, steps into the stirrup. Up she goes, the flashlight in her hand probing the space overhead.

“Shit!”

“What? What do you see?”

She drops back down to the desk, slides to the floor. “Two dead rats with their necks broken in traps. It looks like they’ve been up there for about a hundred years.”

“What else?”

“A stack of ancient window screens. And water pipes from the bathroom, I guess.”

“No sign it was ever a party place.”

“Sorry, guys. It doesn’t even look like there’s a floor. Just a few boards to walk on. And a lot stuff that looks like pink cotton candy.”

“Insulation.” Michael slides the hatch back in place, drops off the desk. “Looks like we’re back to square one.”

“And we’re almost out of time.”

Gracie has settled onto the couch again, legs stretched out, eyes closed. “Kevin said his brother sounded so sure.”

“Another urban legend bites the dust.”

Suddenly the girl leaps to her feet. “Hey! What about the chimney!”

“You think it was some kind of secret tunnel?”

“No. But when I looked in the attic, I didn’t see it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Shouldn’t I have seen it going up through the attic to the roof?” The adults shrug.

“You can see the top of it rising above the roof on the north side of the house. It’s black with white trim,” says Awasha.

He has his eyes closed, trying to picture the design of Hibernia House. “Maybe there are two rooms in the attic. The hatch over the stairwell is on the south side. Maybe there’s another way to get up there from the north side.”

“Which way is that?” Gracie suddenly has the look of someone who depends on the GPS mapping function in her cell phone to keep from getting lost.

“That way,” he says, pointing toward Liberty’s room.

Awasha is muttering. “Danielle is going to be looking for us at Beedle Cottage.”

But Gracie and Michael are already in Liberty’s room. Gracie pounding on walls. Michael tapping the ceiling with a broom handle. An urgent cadence. In the dark. Listening for someplace that sounds hollow or loose.

It’s on his third tap of a closet ceiling that something gives way overhead. Falls.

Dust, plaster clinkers, cardboard come showering down on his head. A choking cloud.

“Cristo Salvador!”

“What?”

He sniffs to clear his nostrils, looks down at the pile of debris at his feet. Awasha shines the flashlight.

“I think I found something … or else the maintenance crew has been patching this ceiling with plaster of Paris and cardboard from an old case of Pabst Blue Ribbon.”

He drags Liberty’s desk into the closet, stacks a chair on top of the desk, climbs. Disappears through the hole left by the false ceiling.

From the bottom of the closet, she can hear his footsteps take several steps across the wood floor overhead.

“Unbelievable.”

“What?”

“You won’t believe this.”

She stares up through the open rectangle in the top of the closet, watches the flashlight beam flickering through the dark above. Outside, the clock on the school’s classroom building chimes.

“Damn! It’s eight o’clock, Gracie. I promised the dean—”

The teenager’s suddenly hugging Awasha’s arm with both hands, shivering. “Do we have to go, Doc?”

Something claws at the back of her mind. An image trying to get out. She sees Squibnocket Beach, its rocks, boulders. The scent of eel grass beneath the cliffs of Aquinnah. And a greenish hatbox that feels almost too heavy for her free hand to clutch to her chest.

“Doc?”

“What?”

“What do you want to do?”

She pictures her mother, Black Squirrel. A faint gray cloud, blowing off over the Atlantic.

“I want to see!”

By the time she and Gracie reach the attic, Michael has found an old lava lamp, turned it on. It casts a red and golden glow, the shadows changing with the ebb and flow of the lamp. The gabled roof of Hibernia House makes the space seem a mix of stunted alcoves and vaults. There are fewer cobwebs than she would have imagined, but a film of silvery dust covers everything. No sign anyone has been up here in years, maybe decades.

She can see that once this was a living space. Servants’ quarters possibly … or a writer’s garret. With no windows. There’s a regular pine floor. The walls a web of peeling blue wallpaper, cracked plaster, exposed lath. Naturally stained wainscotting. One wall is lined floor-to-ceiling with empty Pabst Blue Ribbon cans.

“I don’t get it,” says Gracie. “How did they get all this stuff up here?”

He flashes the light around. “There’s your answer.”

The flashlight beam settles on the remains of steep stairs circling the back of the big chimney on their way down to the third floor. But the steps stop short of a landing. Studs, drywall, insulation where once there must have been a door.

In the center of the room, three crudely made tables. Two with several decks of cards stacked in the center, one with a set of science lab scales and an immense, blue, glass bong. A dozen folding chairs sit in no obvious order. When she squints her eyes, she can see several crumby mattresses tucked into the remote recesses of the room. Closer inspection shows each with its own stack of
Playboy, Hustler, High Times
magazines from 1973, ‘74, ‘75. On the floor near the lava lamp is a phonograph. The Beatles Yellow Submarine LP on the turntable. Books of matches and half-burned candles of all shapes and sizes dot the landscape.

“Check this out.” Gracie points to the chimney. Above the bricked-up hearth hangs a green nylon banner. Two-by-four feet. Words on the banner proclaim CLUB TROPICAL in large orange script. Beneath the words someone has scrawled in what appears to be pink paint, SUCKS SHIT. And in fuzzy red lettering, maybe from some kind of marker, RED TOOTH RULES!

“Red Tooth again. Like in the News: Red Tooth Still Rules. This is secret society shit, guys. We’ve found a club room like Kevin’s brother said. You think this is the name of another secret society, Doc? Club Tropical?”

She doesn’t answer. Can’t think what to say. Something has stolen her voice. It’s as if she’s watching a movie, can’t talk to those people on the screen. Gracie drifting away from the banner, taking the bong in her hands, sniffing at the dope bowl. Michael starting to thumb through one of the
High Times.
On a distant wall a crude oil portrait of Jimmy Hendrix, in browns and yellows.

Her eyes fall upon a small box on the fireplace mantel. When she picks it up, she sees that it is an open six-pack of Trojan condoms. Two remain sealed in their red foil.

Her ears are ringing. She closes her eyes and sees her brother’s face.
Ronnie in his red plaid work shirt, khaki pants. Moccasins. Tall and heavy like their father. His eyes wet. Wind blowing tears over his face. He tries to wipe them away, but the thin, jagged lines of fluid keep coming over his tan cheeks. A convulsion starting to rise in his chest. In her own.

“There’s something very wrong here.”

“What, Doc?”

“Come on Gracie. We’ve got to go!”

He puts down the
High Times.
“I’m thinking somebody might have been dealing dope up here. Stashed some drugs or money. Kind of looks like they left in a big hurry. And never came back. Mind if I look around some more?”

She feels a black rattling behind her eyes. “I’ll call you. Give me at least an hour or two … And try not to get caught, will you?”

THE living room in Beedle House is nearly dark. Reeking from the wet, smoky maple sputtering in the hearth.

It’s after eleven o’clock.

Denise pours herself a fourth or fifth glass of white. None for her Wampanoag friend, the long-term house guest. The one still nursing her mug of tea. She would rather watch the ripples of blue flame dying on the last burning log than say one more word tonight. Rather wonder if it might be better to be Liberty Baker right now. Maybe her mother and the tribal elders were right. Death could be a canoe ride to a better place.

Gracie is long gone from the scene. Dean Pasteur having told her to get her defiant little ass upstairs in her bedroom and do some homework for a change. She’s restricted to campus indefinitely, required to be in her room every night by eight. Like shape up or ship out, young missy.

The dean settles onto the sofa. Raises her glass, swallows deep. Sighs. She’s in her red silk pajamas, ready for bed, but looking across the room hoping to catch Awasha’s attention. Get her to come out of herself, out of the fire. This mystery with long silk hair, with the old Indian robe wrapped around her, feet tucked under her in the winged-back chair.

“That girl should have gone home with the others!”

She hears frustration, and something else—anger maybe—in Denise Pasteur’s voice. Suddenly wishes she had never agreed to leave Hibernia House to come to Beedle Cottage. Not after Liberty’s funeral. And not tonight. Especially not tonight. She wishes she could just settle down and read a few chapters of
Sula.
But barring that, she’d rather still be back in that attic, searching for god-knows-what. Peace of mind, probably.

“Don’t be like that. Gracie’s had a rough time. She just needs some TLC.” Her eyes arc, reflecting the last of the fire.

“So she’s running off to get it from some thirty-year-old fisherman who takes her to Brazilian bars in the city? Shit, Awasha! Talk about risky behavior. If her parents knew she could get away with this sort of thing at school, do you have any idea how many ways they would sue us and T-C?”

“Michael Decastro is a good guy.”

“Why is it you feel the need to tell me that just about every time I see you? Do you have a crush on that man too?”

She says he’s salt of the earth. Like friends she had growing up in Barnstable, Mashpee, Chatham, the Vineyard. And some of her cousins. Portagees. Fishermen’s kids. Honest and loyal and steady. Hearts as big as …

“God. Enough already. I’m sorry I ever raised the topic. But I just wonder how you are going to feel when Gracie turns up pregnant … or worse.”

“That’s mean. You’re so mean tonight. Why are you being so cruel?”

“Because I can’t get through to you. It’s like you’re on some other planet.”

“I’ve had one hell of a day. I don’t need to be badgered … Please!”

“Let’s call it a night and go to bed. I’m just afraid that if word of any of Gracie’s mischief gets back to Bumbledork—or the rest of the faculty—we’re all screwed. Gracie’s getting to be … Fuck. I’m sorry. Forgive me, OK?”

She smiles. “Of course! I just need to stay down here by the fire for a while and chill.” Beneath the robe her right hand fishes for the cell phone in the hip pocket of the sweat pants she wears for sleeping on these frozen nights.

He thinks maybe he was too pushy, too weird when she finally called him. When he said he needed her to come back to the Club Tropical. He couldn’t help himself. He was getting into something messy. Something freaking him out. Something he didn’t want to deal with alone.

Now that she’s back in the attic, he’s still not sure he feels any relief. It is after midnight and the two of them are down on their knees in front of a small door leading into a crawl space over the eaves. He found it concealed behind a steamer trunk. But the door won’t budge. It has been fastened shut with a random collection of steel screws, the kind that you usually see anchoring the legs to chairs you might find in a dormitory.

“Somebody totally jury-rigged this. Had to have been kids, not a tradesman. I think they were trying to hide something. But I can’t get this open!” His fingernails ache from clawing at the edge of the door.

“Try this.” She grabs a spoon she sees on the table next to the scales.

It’s a soup spoon, heavy silver plate, probably stolen from the school dining hall. And it works well enough as a jimmy. One-by-one he pops the screws loose as he pries with the spoon around the edges of the door.

Then he curls his fingers around the loose edge and pulls. Hard. The door pops open with a loud crack, the sound of screws clattering on the floor.

He drops back on his haunches, stares into the dark crawl space.

“You first.” Her voice warbles slightly as she hands him the flashlight.

He looks into her black eyes. Soft and deep and scared. Sitting there on the floor, she’s shivering, too, even in her sweats and parka. It must be below forty degrees in this attic. His hands and throat feel dry, bony from the dust and chill. He can’t take even another second of this nonsense, and maybe neither can she.

“Miller time.”

“What?”

“I found a bottle of peppermint schnapps tucked back in a corner by one of those mattresses.”

“You want to drink? Now?”

He lights a big candle made in a mason jar, warms his hands over the flame, and pushes the candle toward her hands.

“Yeah, I’m going to see what peppermint schnapps tastes like. What the hell. Take a break. Like what the hell are we doing here in the middle of the night?”

“You really think a bunch of dumb teenagers would kill Liberty to protect something like this?”

He shrugs, doesn’t have the faintest idea. If there is one thing he has learned from his time with the Public Defender’s Office, it is that people, even the gentlest of us, can kill.

“Michael, this place is creeping me out!”

“You think the kids buy this stuff ‘cause they think it smells like mouthwash on their breath? Stuff’s got to be older than we are.”

He wipes the dust off the top of the ancient bottle with his jacket sleeve, breaks the plastic seal, twists off the cap.

“You’re really going to drink it?”

He sniffs at the open neck of the bottle, the sharp scent of mint, the tang of alcohol. “Yeah, why not? I don’t think booze goes bad.”

“Then give me a sip too.” She stretches out a hand. “I damn well need something to get me through tonight.”

He picks up the flashlight and rolls from his butt onto his knees. “Time to find out if the Club Tropical stowed any swag in this crawl space.”

She giggles, takes a long pull from the bottle of schnapps, a half-dozen candles now burning in a circle around the two of them.

“Do your thing.”

He crawls headfirst into the crawl space.

The first thing he notices is the faint scent of ammonia, the subtle stench of the fish hold on the
Rosa Lee
the day after the lumpers have toted off the catch and the ice is all melted.

“Shit.”

“What?”

He backs out.

“It’s full of broken furniture … and a couple of dead squirrels. They’ve probably been nesting in there for years.”

“What do you want to do now?”

“If anyone stashed something back in here, it’s buried under a lot of crap.”

“Maybe we should just call it quits.”

“And do what?”

“I don’t know. This is just way too weird.”

He sits, rubs his eyes, takes a swallow of schnapps, slaps both his cheeks with his open hand. “Get your net in the water, Mo!”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just something my father says to me when I’m dragging my ass over something I know I have to do.”

“Oh … Well, then, get your net in the water, Mo.”

He scrambles back into the hole, closes his eyes against the cloud of dust that rises as he pulls out the pieces of three or four old chairs. A cold wind blows through a hole the squirrels have gnawed in the cornice. When the debris is all out, he sees four stacks of old porn mags rising right up against the eves.

“Those horny little buggers were in here.”

“What?”

“Standby.”

He drags the magazines out of the crawl space. Brushes away the dried-up carcass of a squirrel still curled in its nest of oak leaves. Suddenly, the scent of ammonia is so strong his throat seizes and he has to bail for fresh air.

“Cristo!”

“What’s that smell?”

He grabs some Kleenex from the pack in his coat pocket and jams it up his nose.

“What are you doing Michael?”

“Fishing.” He crawls back through the hole and shines the light around, notices that the floorboards that had been covered by the magazines are lose.

As soon as he lifts up three of them and tosses them out of the way, he can see something black, vinyl or plastic, stuffed between the floor joists.

“I got something.”

“Really?”

He tears away more floor boards, passes them out to her. They come up in four- and six-foot lengths. Now he knows what he is seeing between the joists. It is a plastic garment bag. There’s a Brooks Brothers logo on it. Something lumpy inside. An old suit maybe. The scent of ammonia is nearly gagging him even through the Kleenex in his nose.

“What did you find?” Her voice sounds distant, muffled by the ringing in his ears.

“Come on, Mo!” he coaches himself. “Don’t puss out now!”

His right hand finds the zipper on the garment bag, pulls. But the zipper seems stuck.

“Shit.” He pulls again.

This time the zipper gives.

He is looking down into the bag. At a coat sleeve. A blue blazer. Three brass buttons on the cuff.

“Oh fuck, Awasha!”

He whacks his head on the door jam, leaping backwards out of the hole.

“There’s somebody …” His voice breaks.

She looks at him with flat, blank eyes. As if she suddenly sees on his face the nightmare that is in the garment bag. The grimy, sleeve of a blazer, pushed up on a leathery, shrunken forearm … and a hand. The fingers squeezed in a fist.

Her arms are already drawing him to her chest, when one of them starts to sob.