The Crossword Murder (21 page)

“Yep. I'm surprised they haven't been out here with the crime tape and roped the place off. But Al said they've been busy and didn't expect to get to it until tomorrow. It'll probably take them all morning. Don't lose that key.”

“I won't … So, if we find anything, we can't touch it?” Belle asked, not attempting to hide the disappointment in her voice.

“As long as the crime tape hasn't been put up we can play stupid. Well … you can play stupid. I've been officially informed by Lever that this is now a crime scene. What you do behind my back …” Rosco shrugged. “Well, there's not much I can do about it, is there?”

Belle smiled. “Where do you think his office was?”

“The first day out, I spotted a fax machine near the entrance to this mazelike thing. What did you call it? Daedalus' Labyrinth?”

“Very good.”

“Anyway, my guess is, Briephs' office is in one of the rooms that shoot off of this central passage.”

They left the entry foyer, traversing the convoluted, spiral-shaped hall until they spotted the electronic equipment Rosco had previously noted. A brief and angled passage led to it, passing beneath a low stone lintel that had clearly been transported from one of the Greek isles. Belle ran her hand along it. “This is amazing. It's a museum piece …” In the dim light, her hand almost disappeared on the stone's worn and pebbly surface. “Modern stonecutters can't duplicate this kind of antiquity … It's as if it had been imported whole from the ancient palace at Knossos.”

Rosco ducked as he walked into the office. “Here's the fax machine. Why don't we split up? You stay put here and see what you can find. And I'll head off that way.” He motioned vaguely toward a nearly hidden room off to the right of the office. “Holler if you find any files. I think these plates are the light switches.” Rosco touched a one- by two-inch bronze plaque attached to the wall and the room gradually began to brighten with an eerie replica of sunlight. “Yep. See you later.” And he disappeared under a second low stone lintel.

Belle walked to the fax and pressed a button marked Reprint Last Document. The machine hummed for a few seconds before spitting out a handwritten copy of the
Herald'
s past Sunday crossword puzzle. She tore it off, folded it and stuffed it into her jeans pocket, then scanned through several insignificant groups of papers before strolling through a stone archway to her left.

The chamber she entered was windowless and tiny with rough-hewn stone walls and floor and an oppressively low ceiling. Light from the main room cast jagged shadows while consigning clefts in the stone to woolly blackness. Belle began running her fingers along the dusky walls, but then thought of spiders lurking in the cracks and kept her hands at her sides.

Except for an ancient wooden chest, the place was barren of furniture. Gingerly, Belle lifted the chests lid; the interior emitted an aged, musty odor but revealed nothing. Then she passed sequentially through three more windowless rooms, each smaller than the one before although each contained a similar chest arranged at the room's center. Pandora's box, Belle thought as she opened all three and found them as empty as the first. In a fit of daring, she thrust her hand inside the third casket, hoping to find a false bottom, but was rewarded only with a powdery coating of moldy, worm-eaten wood. She began to wonder whether she was still above sea level.

The next room she discovered was twice as large as the the original office. Failing to detect a light plate, she was only barely able to discern a fountain at the room's center cascading around the feet of an incomplete statue she believed to be Athena, the goddess of wisdom. Athena, Belle reflected, patron of Athens, the city-state Theseus left to conquer the Minotaur and to which he returned triumphant but also bearing witness to the tragedy of his king-father's death.

Noise from the fountain reverberated from the stone walls, drowning other sound, while beyond it the room appeared to open into three archways that seemed identical to the one through which Belle had entered. They were black holes in the dim light and she decided to proceed no farther. Instead, she stood gazing at the fountain for another minute until a sudden chill swept over her. For the second time, she wondered if the complex she'd discovered was subterranean.

She decided to retrace her steps, and turned to leave, but before she could proceed, heard the sound of footsteps marching loudly toward her. It was impossible to tell from which direction they came, and she froze, recalling the break-in at her home and the front door slamming shut behind her. The footsteps banged across the stone, growing more insistent by the moment while Belle stared from one entry to another, trying to ascertain which passage would be safe.

Then Rosco walked through the archway to her right. Belle ran to him and he put his arms around her and held her tightly.

“I told you to stay put. What happened?” he asked.

“Something scared me. I don't know what … It may sound bizarre, but I almost felt as if I were being watched.” She looked up and their eyes locked. An unmistakable energy passed between them; they both tried to shake free, but it was futile. In the darkened room, amid the echoing plash of water, Rosco bent down and brought his lips to meet Belle's.

CHAPTER 27

T
HE KISS
LASTED
close to thirty seconds. Belle was the first to break it off. She stood back and took Rosco's hands, then, looking at their intertwined fingers, said, “It's no good. We can't let ourselves do this.”

“I know. I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking.” He turned and walked to the fountain. “I don't know what got into me. It wasn't very professional.” An uneasy chuckle followed the admission.

“Forget it.”

“Right,” he said with a shake of the head.

“How did you get in here, anyway?” she asked, trying to cover her own emotions with a professional tone.

“The rooms are interconnected. When I left you next to the fax machine, the trail looped around to lead me here.”

“No bank records, then?”

“Listen, Belle, I'm—”

“Rosco, forget it. I was as much to blame as you.” She folded her arms across her chest and pretended to study the ceiling. “Well … so … did you find the bank records?”

“No. No. Just three rooms that looked like dungeons or something. Shackles and leg irons hanging from the walls. A couple of doors leading into places no bigger than closets. Did you find anything?”

“Shackles?”

“That's what they looked like.”

“And leg irons? That's certainly unpleasant …”

“Lever said Briephs was into the rough stuff, remember?”

“And you think …? Oh, yuck!” Belle paused. To Rosco it seemed as though she'd retreated into herself; he silently cursed himself for bringing up Briephs' less-than-savory love life, then decided to forge ahead as if the subject hadn't been broached.

“How about you? Find anything?”

“Empty rooms with empty antique caskets. Odd and definitely daunting, but nothing physically harmful … The rooms looked almost as if Thompson had wanted to construct a stage set—complete with props. Maybe the shackles and leg irons you discovered were part of the set design … or perhaps Briephs' research into the ancient Minoan civilization had led him to believe he was re-creating their artifacts and surroundings …”

Rosco didn't answer.

“You disagree?”

“Belle, I see a good deal of unusual, sometimes aberrant behavior in my work. Not much surprises me anymore.”

Belle pondered his reply. “I'm glad I wasn't aware of some of the seamier details before today.”

Rosco considered asking what she meant, but before he could speak, she turned and gazed at the two remaining archways. “Which one do you want to try next? I'd like to stick together this time, though. This place is beginning to give me the creeps.”

“Fine by me.”

“How's your sense of direction? We shouldn't lose track of where we started. I told Peter we'd be a half-hour at most.”

Rosco looked behind him, and then toward the archway through which Belle had emerged. “Well, the lady in the fountain is facing you, so all we have to do is follow her nose.”

“Don't count on it. That fountain's turning. It's moving slowly, but watch closely. She was facing left when you walked in.”

Rosco studied the statue for a full minute. “You're right.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a somewhat tarnished dime and placed it at the base of the doorway Belle had used. He then turned and pointed toward the opposite wall. “Let's try that one first.”

The first room they entered was totally empty, though again constructed of the same rough stone. They passed through, reaching a second chamber lined with dark oak bookshelves carved into the jagged rock. This time Belle was successful in finding a lighting pad. She depressed it and the area was slowly suffused with a gilded glow. She began glancing at the book titles. Most were foreign-language dictionaries. The rest were encyclopedias and other reference materials.

“We're getting warm,” she said.

On the opposite wall were two squat heavy wooden doors whose hinges were fashioned of age-blackened iron. Rosco crossed to the door on the right, which was dead-bolted. He bent down and studied the lock.

Belle moved beside him. “I assume you don't have an ancient skeleton key?”

“No. But there's a modern look disguised within the older one … Piece of cake …” He pulled a small pick from his wallet and had the door unlocked in less than ten seconds.

“Wow,” she said. “That was impressive.”

“Are you being sarcastic? That sounded a little snide to me.”

“No. Not at all. I'm impressed. Really.”

Rosco pulled open the door and they stepped into what had clearly been Thompson Briephs' private office. Although still adhering to the ancient Attic theme, the room contained an orderly desk, a number of bookcases, two filing cabinets and fifteen or twenty Minoan statuettes and amphorae arranged with museumlike precision and individually lighted, each with a pin spot of its own.

“Why do you think he kept the fax machine all the way back there?” Rosco asked as he cocked his thumb toward the open door.

“I don't know. Perhaps it's more convenient to the rest of the house?”

“Maybe.” Rosco walked up to one of the filing cabinets and opened it. “I'll take this one. You can have the other.”

It took them fifteen minutes to search both filing cabinets and Briephs' desk drawers. They found nothing unusual and nothing they wanted. There were plenty of crossword puzzles, but all had been previously published; there were no copies of the three puzzles currently in their possession, nor any signs of the two still missing.

“What strikes me as odd,” Rosco finally sighed, “is that there are no bank records. No canceled checks. Nothing. Wouldn't you think they'd be here?”

“What did you say?” Belle had been staring at one of the statuettes and obviously not listening.

“Where are his bank records?” Rosco's frustration sharpened his tone.

But Belle's mind was elsewhere. “I've seen this piece before,” she murmured. “I don't know where, but I'm certain of it.”

Rosco moved closer to her. “I don't know, they all kind of look the same.”

“This one I recognize.” She pointed to another figurine. “And that woman with the coiled hair? I know I've seen her, too. And there's an amphora that looks quite familiar.”

“Well, I'm sure there's dozens of them all over the world. You probably saw something like that in a museum somewhere.”

“I don't know … I don't believe so …”

Rosco studied the statuette of the woman with coiled hair. She was a buxom seminude; serpents were entwined in her tightly curled coif and wrapped around her neck like stray and oily tendrils. “I agree with you. It's a unique piece … Not to my liking, however.”

“All I can say is that I've seen it before. Right down to that tiny chip on her forehead.” Belle glanced at her watch and let out a sigh. “We should go. I hate to make Peter wait any longer.”

When they returned to the dock Peter could be seen seated at the far end, legs dangling over the edge and his attention riveted to the music coming from a portable CD player. The vibrations of their footsteps brought him back to earth. He switched off the music with an almost guilty expression. “No luck?”

“Pardon me?” Rosco asked, his thoughts unhappily anticipating the upcoming boat ride.

“Didn't you say you were picking something up for Mrs. Briephs?”

“Oh, right, yes. No, we didn't find it.”

“That must be some place in there.”

“It's not for the faint of heart,” Belle said with a shudder. “Briephs never asked you in for one of his famous parties?”

“Nope. He never mingled with the working stiffs. What were you looking for?”

Without thinking, Belle said, “Puzzles.”

“Puzzles?”

Rosco jumped in quickly. “Yeah, puzzles. The place is covered with them. Coffee cups with crossword puzzles, place mats with puzzles, plates, bowls, the works. We've got puzzles coming out of our ears. Actually what Mrs. Briephs wanted was a small statue she said was her favorite. But we never found it. I hope nobody pinched it …”

Belle stared at Rosco as if he'd lost his mind, but decided to keep her mouth shut.

Then the three stepped aboard the launch and headed back to the yacht club. Rosco remained in the stern, hanging on for dear life while Peter ran the larger swells and entertained Belle with a seemingly endless monologue. Occasionally he glanced aft and called out, “How're you making out back there?” while Rosco attempted a sickly smile and a wave that never ventured too far from the gunwale.