1 Death Pays the Rose Rent (20 page)

“Did you drive Rose Thorne out to the judge’s house yesterday afternoon?”

“Why ya want to know?”

“I’m helping the police with the investigation.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Okay, I’m conducting a private investigation. Can’t you just tell me, yes or no?”

“Yes.”

“What time? Please?” I wheedled.

He pulled over to the curb and turned his whole body around so he could look at me. “Look, young lady. I saw you drive into town in Mrs. MacKinstrie’s Volkswagen, which is parked right in front of the Historical Society, so I know you don’t need a ride out to Silverthorne. I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but it better be important.”

“I wouldn’t bother you like this if it weren’t.”

“Rose’s an old friend of mine. I don’t want to get her into trouble.”

“It might help her.”

He opened his glove compartment and extracted a black notebook, which he flipped open. “Let’s see. Yup, here it is. Picked Rose up at Silverthorne at four-forty. Dropped her off at Judge Parker’s house at five

oh five. Came back to get her at six. She was about halfway down the block, by herself, crying. I took her home, arriving at six-thirty.”

I complimented him on his careful record keeping. He beamed with pride as he patted his little book. “Better safe than sorry, I always say. No telling when some nosy parker might come along and want some information.” His blue eyes twinkled as he spoke.

“One more question, then I promise I’ll quit. Did you take anyone else to the judge’s house, or anywhere nearby, either before or after Rose’s visit?”

He shook his head and started his engine. “Nope. And in answer to your next ‘one more question,’ I didn’t see anybody hanging around there, either.”

“Would it mess up your schedule if we drove past the judge’s house?”

“Is it supposed to help Miss Rose?”

“Of course.”

“No problem.”

It really wasn’t, since the judge’s home was only two blocks from downtown. Uriah stopped the cab in front of the property where the yellow police tape still fluttered.

Now what? I wondered.

I saw Mrs. O’Brien beheading roses in front of her house.

“Hold on a minute,” I told Uriah as I jumped out of the car.

Mrs. O’Brien didn’t recognize me, but when I explained I was working for the police, she was so open and friendly that I almost felt ashamed of my deception.

When I got back into the car, I felt like an accomplished detective. After answering several questions, Mrs. O’Brien had casually mentioned that she saw Judge Parker standing in his doorway when Rose
left
his house. She couldn’t remember if she’d mentioned it to the police chief because it hadn’t seemed very important. After all, the poor man was dead. What difference did it make when it happened?

If he was alive when Rose left, and Uriah picked her up just a few moments later, it eliminated her as a suspect. Unless she had gone back to the castle, rushed back to town through the underground tunnels, killed him, and got out of there before his laundry showed up. But Uriah’s meticulous records indicated they didn’t get back to the castle until six-thirty, just the time the body was being found.

Uriah dropped me off in front of the Historical Society, chafed me a dollar fifty, wished me a nice day, and drove off to his next appointment.

Alice-Ann had a glass of wine poured for me before I mastered the front door lock.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

“No problems. Mark’s upstairs playing in his room, and your cats are making pests of themselves by following me everywhere.”

We sat in the living room, each with a lap full of cat, and I told her where I’d been and what information I’d managed to ferret out.

When I was finished, I asked her if she had found anything in Richard’s papers about his research proj

ect. She hadn’t, not in his office or in the house. She swore she had gone through everything, even trunks in the attic.

At least the search hadn’t been a total waste of time; she’d found some Victorian dresses in the trunks that we could wear to the Mystery Dinner Saturday night.

Close to ten, the phone rang.

‘’There’s Garnet,” Alice-Ann said with a smile.

She was right.

“Just called to see if everything was all right at your place,” he said.

“We’re fine. How did things work out with the woman who shot her husband?”

“She’s already out on bail. The women in her trailer park took up a collection. She’ll probably end up getting a medal for killing that bastard. How was your drive in the country?”

“Nice.” I shuddered thinking of the twisting, narrow mountain road. “I went to the Penn State campus library. Garnet, I found out a lot about Edison. He really was working on something to communicate with the dead. Then I visited Miss Effie at the Historical Society, and she told me that when she was a child, Edison actually brought a black box to the building to test it—downstairs, where the slaves died. I checked with the taxi driver, Uriah, and he said …”

I wasn’t getting any response at all from Garnet. Not even an occasional uh-huh or a hmmm.

“Are you still there?”

Patient, pained, Garnet said, “Tori, I asked you to stay out of this. I’m taking care of it. Please stop!”

“It’s just that you’re so busy …”

“Tori, it’s my job. Trust me to do it right.”

“What’d he have to say?” Alice-Ann asked after I hung up.

“He said I’m a great help. And to keep up the good work.”

We succumbed to a fit of giggles after that.

Saturday

CHAPTER 19 

Still wearing the Scarecrow of Oz T-shirt I’d slept in, I pulled on my jeans and went down to the kitchen where I fixed a mug of instant coffee and watched the sunrise. A real treat for a city dweller. Lickin Creek was going to have a beautiful day for its Rose Rent Festival.

I got Garnet’s cave maps from the hall table and quickly found the one that showed Alice-Ann’s house and the castle. Noel strolled into the kitchen and mewed with pleasure when she saw me. She rubbed against my legs and jumped on my lap as soon as I sat down. We both studied the map I had spread on the table. It was interesting to see that this house and the castle were connected by a straight stretch of tunnel. And, best of all, I saw the location of the underground lake, and drawn next to it, a little stick figure, with body written in childish print above it.

Noel was now sitting on the map, right on top of the lake, naturally. I picked her up and scratched behind her ears and was rewarded by loud purring.

“Where’s Fred?” I called. “Come on, sweetie. Mommy’s up early.”

After a few minutes, when he still hadn’t shown up, I felt a twinge of concern. Usually he was begging for food the minute he woke up.

That’s when I noticed that the door to Alice-Ann’s basement workshop was open. One of the cute tricks both cats had taught themselves was how to jump up and hang on a doorknob until the door opened. You’ll never find a dog doing that!

I called down the stairs. “Fred? Are you down there?”

Some people might think that cats don’t answer, but anyone owned by a cat knows they talk to you. Right then, Noel was uttering little squeaks and moans, showing she was worried, too.

I pulled the string that turned on the bare bulb at the top of the stairs and went down, with Noel following, still expressing her concern. In the workshop, Alice-Ann had installed fluorescent lights, and the room sprang into view when I turned them on. There was no sign of a large orange and white cat anywhere.

I peered under the worktables, calling him, to no avail, until I noticed Noel standing at the cave entrance that I had uncovered several days ago. She meowed several times, and I heard a faint echo in the dark below.

“Fred. Here, boy. Come on, baby.”

Another faint meow came up the shaft.

I found a flashlight and pointed it into the hole. Two green spots glowed back at me.

“Stay right there,” I ordered. “I’ll come and get you.”

Meow.

I put the flashlight on the floor, turned around, got on my knees, and placed one foot on the ladder. It seemed secure, so I put my other foot on the next rung and felt it snap under my weight. If I hadn’t still been hanging on to the brick sides of the arch, I would have plunged straight down. Possibly it wouldn’t have killed me, but breaking a leg or my back was not a pleasant prospect.

I almost split myself in half getting one leg on the floor while hanging on to the rough bricks for dear life. I wiggled and twisted and pulled myself up inch by frightening inch until I was lying facedown on the solid workshop floor. The muscles in my arms, unaccustomed to exercise, were trembling, my hands were shaking, and my legs quivering. When I had somewhat recovered, I looked down into the hole and surveyed the damage. The ladder was useless.

“Fred?”

No answer. He must have become frightened by the noise of the ladder’s breaking and scampered deeper into the cave.

“Fred?”

I heard a meow so faint that I knew he must be going in the wrong direction.

Don’t panic, I told myself. There must be a way to get down there. I looked frantically around the room. No ladders, no ropes, nothing I could use.

I grabbed Noel and beat it up the stairs into the kitchen, put her into the laundry room, grabbed Garnet’s cave map, and ran out of the house, heading as fast as I could for the castle. According to the map, there was an entrance there, and I was betting it was below the kitchen, just like all the others I’d seen. I prayed their ladder was in better condition than Alice-Ann’s.

I circled around the castle and went directly to the kitchen door. As I burst through the door, I suddenly realized what a sight I must be, barefoot, in my rumpled Oz T-shirt and no bra, and oldest jeans. So, could I get away with it, sneaking in and out unnoticed? Of course not, the room was full of people. Some of the actors were already there, as were several people wearing chefs aprons and others in blue jeans.

They seemed to be in a state of mass confusion, but I didn’t have time to wonder why. “Excuse me,” I said, pushing my way through to the basement door.

“What are you doing?” George yelled at me.

“Looking for Fred,” I hollered over my shoulder as I ran down the stairs.

Sure enough, there was a familiar archway in the basement; this one with a real door. I opened it and saw with relief that there were stairs leading into the caves instead of a ladder. They looked pretty sturdy, so I took a chance and started down.

Above me, I heard George calling, “Come back. It’s too dangerous. Something’s happened.”

I thought I heard him telling someone to get help, but I had already gone too far to hear him clearly.

I used one hand to shine the flashlight on the ground before me, being careful to watch for cave-

ins. With my other hand I kept in touch with the wet, cold cave wall, both to keep my balance and to reassure myself that I was still in the tunnel between the castle and the cottage. Water dripped from above and quickly soaked my T-shirt. My teeth were chattering from the cold. Thank God the tunnel was fairly straight, just as Garnet’s drawing showed it. However, the descent was quite steep, and my feet often slipped on the slimy floor.

“Here, kitty,” I called in that silly falsetto voice people use when calling their pets. “Here, good boy. Come on, Fred.”

No answer, but I figured I was still some distance from the cottage, and he probably hadn’t gone terribly far from it.

The hand that had been groping its way along the wall was suddenly touching nothing. I stopped and used the flashlight to examine the map. It should be the tunnel that led to the underground lake. I could hear running water below me.

I listened carefully and was sure I heard something familiar.

“Kitty?” I called, stepping a foot or two into the new tunnel.

“Fred? Are you down there?”

There was no doubt about it this time. I heard a very definite mrreow coming from the darkness.

Keeping up a running patter of, “Here, boy, good kitty, come on, baby,” I was reassured by little mewling sounds as I splashed through an ankle-deep stream of ice-cold water.

I emerged from the narrow, low tunnel into an immense fairyland of crystal. The light from my flashlight reflected and bounced from thousands of jewellike stalactites and stalagmites in the cavern. Before me was the underground lake, dark and still as black velvet.

Something touched my leg, and I jumped six inches into the air.

I swept Fred into my arms and hugged him. He smelled of damp and mold, but that didn’t keep me from burying my face in his beautiful fur. I was glad there was no one there to see me cry.

“Come on, Fred. As long as we’re here, we might as well take a look around.”

Cat draped over one shoulder, I circled the lake and was constantly amazed at the magical formations that came into view. Deep in the glowing crystals, I saw unicorns and elves, ice princesses and buried treasures. This was the cave of Merlin, and the Hob-bit, and all the other mysterious and wonderful dreams of childhood.

And then I came face-to-face with reality. Leaning against the cavern wall, legs casually crossed, was a human skeleton, its clothes still intact enough to be recognizable as a Union Army uniform. I knelt next to him, feeling no revulsion. Perhaps because his skeleton was so clean, and he looked so peaceful. Fred jumped down and sniffed at the bones. When he found nothing that interested him, he sat down and licked his bottom.

It was immediately apparent that the man’s right leg had been broken in several places. Bone protruded from a tear in his trouser leg. I could imagine

him coming down here to hide, falling and breaking his leg, then lying here in the dark until death released him from his pain.

A leather pouch, almost concealed by his shirt, hung from a strap around his neck. I knelt beside him and carefully lifted it over the skull. Perhaps it would contain letters that would tell me who he was. It felt lumpy in my hand and heavier than I thought it would be. Maybe he carried daguerreotypes of his loved ones with him, as so many Civil War soldiers did.

I emptied the contents onto my lap and touched, for the first time, the fabulous blue diamond that was Sylvia’s Star. It actually seemed to glow from within, while the brilliant white diamonds surrounding it reflected points of light on every surface. Even Fred reached out one white paw and touched the cobalt blue gem with reverence, before I tucked it back into the pouch, which I slipped over my head.

I was extremely pleased with myself. I had solved the mystery of the first Sylvia’s death. While the local citizens were hiding in the castle from the Confederate army, a Union soldier, someone whom they thought they could trust, plotted to steal the fabulous necklace. I wanted to believe he hadn’t planned to kill Sylvia, but quite likely she surprised him in the act, and he seized something and struck her before she could call for help. Then he had hidden in the caves, probably planning to wait for night to make his escape, but had broken his leg and had to wait for death, knowing he had in his possession a treasure great enough to buy everything he had ever dreamed of. A treasure to die for!

I’d solved the mystery, found the diamond, and had the subject for my next book! What a great morning!

Praxythea had said the jewel would be found “by the edge of running water.” For a moment I was almost a believer.

I stood up and was bending over to pick up Fred when I heard a tiny sound, off to my right. No more than a pebble rolling on the cavern floor, but something must have disturbed it. Something I couldn’t see. I thought of snakes, bats, rats, and other things so horrible they had no names. There was the sound again, behind me now. I wanted to call out, yell, scare it away, but no sound would come out of my open mouth. I tried to will away the darkness, and that’s when I noticed that one of the jewellike reflections in my flashlight beam was not a reflection at all, but a tiny red light that resembled the tip of a lighted cigarette. I moved quietly in that direction and saw that the light was coming from the infamous black box, which I was sure was Edison’s spirit communicator. But who was down here with it? Someone had to have turned it on. The noise …again … behind me. Before I could spin around to face it, something hit the middle of my back with such force that I crashed facedown on the wet floor.

It’s possible I lost consciousness for a few minutes. I thought I heard footsteps moving away from me, but I was totally disoriented by the darkness. My flashlight was lost or broken, and I was lying in pitch

blackness with Fred licking my ear. I groped for the flashlight, found it, and listened in horror to it rattle when I tried to turn it on.

Sylvia’s Star! Where was it? I caught my breath as I clutched at my chest, then exhaled with relief when I felt the leather pouch, still hanging from my neck. I stuck a finger through the drawstrings and ran it across the faceted surfaces of the stone. It seemed intact. What an ironic twist it would have been to have found the gem after all the years it was missing, only to lose it again.

I felt a strong empathy with my dead companion. This is how it must have been for him as he waited to die. Sitting in the dark with a fabulous jewel hanging from his neck.

But there was a big difference. I had a headache from my fall, but I didn’t have a broken leg, and I was not going to lie down and die. I was going to get out of here, but first I was going to get my hands on that elusive black box.

“Come on, kitty,” I said, crawling on my hands and knees toward the place where the little red light still glowed. As I got closer, the light dimmed. By the time I bumped my head on the stone wall of the cavern, the light had gone out.

I cursed. Fred emitted a timid squeak, and as I reached out to pet him, I touched something hard, not hard like a rock, but hard like a leather suitcase. I collapsed with my back against the wall, hugging Fred for warmth.

My nose had become accustomed to the damp, earthy odor of the cave, but now I could smell something else. Very faint, but definitely the scent of carnations. It reinforced my earlier suspicions of Praxythea.