Deadly Decision (18 page)

“Might have a storm tonight,” Ted murmured.

Sandra, sitting beside me, looked toward the sky. “That would be good, y'all. We need the rain.”

Strange how everyone claims the same spots on the porch
.

“Hmm.” Trina looked up from the diary she was reading. “Listen to this:

They came for more furniture today. Father said we could buy them back when the hard times are over. Father lived in the mountains when he was my age. The war must have been very bad. He walks away when I ask him about it.

I cried when the men came for my bed. Father said to stop crying, we are more fortunate than most families. He is right. We have food to eat and a house to live in. Mother is stuffing me a mat to sleep on tonight.

Now I have to find somewhere else to keep my diary. I do not want William to find it.

A dreamy expression covered Trina's face. “I thought Isabelle was an adult, but she must be a young girl.”

“You were meant to come here,” Sandra murmured. “That journal's been waitin' all these years for you to find it. Isabelle must have a story she wants to tell you. Do you have a last name for Isabelle yet?”

“Not yet, but I've hardly gotten started on this journal.”

Trina tossed her auburn hair over her shoulder. I loved it when she wore her long hair down. Too often, she tied it up in a ponytail. Tonight she almost looked like her usual self. There was some color in her face, and she had put on a loose summer dress for dinner.

“That partially explains how the table got to Scarlet's,” Sandra added. “And it fits so nice in our dining room.”

“Sounds like her family went through some hard times.” I added my part to the conversation but was more interested in looking at my daughter's hair, and how the sun revealed hints of gold.

The wicker chair crackled as Trina unexpectedly jumped up, dumped the journal in her chair, and raced toward the door. “I know where I've seen that name before!”

When she returned, she held the tattered Bible.

“Slide over Dad.” Trina handed the Bible to Sandra and wedged herself between us.

Sandra opened the cover of the shabby Bible. “Where did you find this?”

“In one of the dressers upstairs. I've been meaning to give it to you, but keep forgetting.” Sandra cradled the book while Trina gently turned the pages. “Look, it has a family tree from back in the early 1800's. I think there's an Isabelle in it.”

Sandra stared at the Bible. “Isabelle might have been a common name back then.”

“I know, but what if they're the same girl?”

Heads almost touching, the two women scanned the yellowed page.

Sandra pointed. “Here she is! Isabelle Sophie. Born January 11, 1880. Died April 4, 1957.” The two women stared at each other.

“Is it possible?” Sandra murmured.

Remember when we carried the table in?” Ted said. “It was a perfect match for the old marks on the floor.”

“What're the odds of that,” I stated, knowing where the girls were taking this discussion and not liking it, “finding the same table that used to belong to the house? It's just coincidence. There are lots of tables that size.”

From the scowl on Trina's face, I knew she disagreed with me.

“Does the Bible have any more information on Isabelle?” Ted asked.

“Look,” Trina cried. “She had a brother named William!”

The women again focused on the faded page.

“She married Paul Studler in 1896,” Sandra added.

Hearing the familiar name, I glanced at Ted.

“You don't think…” he asked, looking my way.

“Nah,” I replied, shaking my head.

Trina held her finger to the browned page. “Isabelle had two children, David and Sarah.”

Sandra smiled. “Sarah was the name of Uncle Carl's mother. If this is the family's old table, you found Uncle Carl's grandmother's journal!”

 



 

The grating of Mitch's truck woke me. Although the sound had recently been invading my nightmares, this time the sound awakened me from a dreamless sleep. I listened. The noise of the truck, or whatever the sound had been that had awakened me, was gone.

As I turned over, regretting the loss of dreamless sleep, faint scraping footsteps filtered into the room.

I assumed they were coming from outside, until I heard them again. Soft and slow-moving. Had Trina gone downstairs? Lately she had been getting up at night for a snack. I slipped into my jeans. Maybe she would like some company—or a chance to talk to her dad.

The hall was dark.
Why didn't she turn on a light?
She needed to be reminded that most accidents happen at home. As I moved down the stairs, I expected to see Trina in the kitchen, but the doorway was black. At the bottom of the stairs, I peered around the corner toward the parlors. The entry was draped in nighttime shadows.

A faint sound, like footsteps grinding sand into the floor, seemed to come from the kitchen.

“Trina?”

Looking toward the blackened kitchen, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end, like the cat ready to attack. But I had no reason to be on edge; Trina was neither a ghost nor my enemy.

A shadow moved in the kitchen. Not Trina. Something else. A smell. I tiptoed toward the kitchen door and groped for the light switch.

A sharp pain cut through my head. Flashes of light blinded, and then all awareness left.

 

 

 

 

21

 

Ted found me in the morning, sitting on a kitchen chair nursing a nasty headache. I repeated the story to Trina, who brought me a bottle of pain killers, an ice pack, and a piece of toast.

Against my pleading, Trina called Sandra, who arrived less than five minutes later. “Are you all right?” she questioned.

A warm flush suffused the length of my body. Sandra seemed honestly concerned, more than expected for the father of her renter. Before I could reply, Trina spoke up. “He won't let us call the police or take him to the emergency room.”

Sandra probed the back of my head. Darts of pain shot up my scalp, and I winced.

“You have a huge lump, but I don't see any blood.” She stooped down until our faces were level. “How do you feel? Are you sick to your stomach?” I wanted to feign sickness to keep her close. Instead, I said, “I just ate some toast.”

Trina nodded in agreement.

“What about dizziness?”

“None.” I stood and pounded my chest “Solid as a rock.”

Sandra gently pushed me back into my chair, and sat across the table from me. “So what happened?”

I repeated the story of hearing a noise, thinking it was Trina, going downstairs and being hit over the head. There was something else, but my throbbing brain kept me from focusing.

“Do you know who it was?” Sandra asked.

“I know exactly who it was.”

Trina turned from making coffee. “Dad, you told me you didn't see the person.”

“I didn't see him. But I still know who it was. I heard his truck.”

“Mitch's truck?” Ted questioned.

“You can't really believe Mitch hit you over the head in the middle of the night?” Sandra asked. “Snooping in the attic is one thing, breaking into the house and attacking people is another. Really, Bill, what do you have against this kid?”

“I know it was Mitch. His truck woke me up.”

“Dad, if you're sure, we should call the police. Or at least talk to Mitch and find out what's going on.” She set three coffee mugs on the table.

I glanced at the clock.
What time was it when I took the last pain killer? Half hour?
“Mitch was after something, and my guess is he's hunting for the family treasure.”

“I told you, that story's been around for years. There is no family treasure. We certainly didn't find any in the attic.”

“But Mitch thinks there is. Remember, Ted, how clean we thought the attic steps were?”

“So what do you want to do?” Ted asked, leaning against the sink. “You don't want to confront Mitch or call the police.”

“We wait. Right now, it would be my word against his, and face it: the police have seen enough of me to think I'm a troublemaker. Even if Mitch is a drifter, the police may not take kindly to me throwing around accusations.”

“We just do nothing?” Trina exclaimed, as she filled the coffee reservoir with water

“Nothing,” I repeated. “And if you need any midnight snacks, wake Ted or me up. Don't go wandering around the house in the dark by yourself.”

“He doesn't have a key,” Trina stated. “He gave it back when he moved out.”

“And he couldn't have made a copy? He's getting in somehow.”

“Maybe we should stay up at night,” Ted said. “I don't like the thought of someone coming into the house when we're asleep.”

“Good idea. We can talk about it later.” I shifted the bottle of pain killers and read the label.
Regular strength.
I shook out two more tablets and popped them into my mouth.

Sandra got up from her chair. “You shouldn't take medicine without water.” She turned on the faucet and handed me a filled glass. “The medicine could get stuck and burn out your throat.”

I swallowed a mouthful of water. A scowl covered Sandra's face. I lifted the glass and downed the remaining contents. She rewarded me with a pat on my shoulder.

“I need a shower.” I managed to get up the stairs, pain shooting through my head with each footstep.

This house is giving me more than it's worth, and I have a feeling it isn't done giving just yet. What more can happen?

 



 

The hot water revived me considerably. The feeling that I was forgetting something about last night plagued me, but in spite of all the pounding in my head, whatever it was wouldn't move from the back of my mind to the front. I walked through the event, from the time the sound of Mitch's truck woke me until I was hit over the head, but could think of nothing new. The kitchen had been too dark to see anything, and the only noise I had heard was gritty footsteps.

Trina called to me as I walked down the stairs. “Hey Dad, come in the dining room.”

The room was a mess, with crumpled newspaper and boxes covering the floor. Ted handed a plate to Trina, and she put it into the corner hutch.

“Sandra brought over some old white china she had for our… for the corner hutch.” She turned to the older woman. “Sorry Sandra. I really do know the house isn't ours, but it feels so much like home.”

Sandra draped an arm around Trina's shoulders. “Y'all have made this place smile again after many years of neglect. I am proud to have you claim it.”

I lifted my nose and sniffed. “What do I smell?”

Sandra sniffed. “I don't smell anything. What does it smell like?”

“Must,” Ted interjected. “You smell the hutch. It hasn't been opened in a while and it smells like old moldy paper.”

“That's it!” I bolted from the room and ran to the kitchen.

“Dad?”

“The smell! That's what I couldn't remember. When I stood in the kitchen door last night, I smelled that same smell.”

“There's nothing in the kitchen that would smell musty.” Trina said. “I scrubbed everything…”

“You scrubbed everything you can see. There has to be a hidden space somewhere.” I glanced around, replaying in my mind where I was standing, where Mitch must have been.

“There's no room for a hidden space,” Ted said. “The walls are either exterior, or they're connected to another room. There isn't any missing space.”

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” I raced to the built-in cabinet against the back outside wall, the wall that also held the old original porch. I ran my hands along the edge of the cabinet where it rested against the wall.

“What are you doing?” Sandra asked.

“I've studied these cupboards. I give a whole lecture on how cabinets were built to hide a secret space where a family could go against Indian attacks. You build a cabinet with a disguised…” I turned and smiled.

“We painted over it and didn't even notice it.” I examined the small irregularity on the cabinet's frame. “Someone's already cut the paint around it.”

I pushed the latch, and then tugged at the left, then the right side of the built-in cabinet. The right side moved from the wall, making a distinct crunching sound, like shoes grinding sand on a wooden floor. As the cabinet moved, it deposited a trail of sand, and released a faint odor of stale air and mold.

“Trina, I think we found the source of your dirt,” I murmured as I continued to shift the right side of the hutch away from the wall.

Behind the cabinet was an opening about the size of a small door. Stone steps led steeply down. In the darkness, the bottom of the stairs was barely visible, but they seemed to end abruptly at a solid wall.

My heart pounded as we crowded toward the newly exposed opening. Finding a hidden room was a real adrenalin rush, but more than the excitement of the discovery, I had found what Mitch was up to. I knew it all along; he did have his own agenda. And I remembered the eerie feeling I had felt in the kitchen, the anger, and then fear. Was the feeling somehow grounded in the hidden space? There was something in this hidden space I was meant to find. My mouth went dry. I glanced around for fleeting shadows, hints of darkness where darkness should not be, but found nothing.

Sandra, clinging to my arm, peered into the gaping hole. “I never knew this was there,” she whispered.

“What's at the bottom?” Ted asked. “It's hard to see.”

“We need some light,” I said. “I have a flashlight in my car.”

“How about the one under the sink?” Trina ran and grabbed it, and passed it to me.