Ripped From the Pages (3 page)

“And there’re some gold pieces over there,” Austin said, pointing. He towered over
me and was able to gaze around without my blocking his view.

Robin, shorter than me by almost six inches, asked Austin to give her a boost up.
I stepped aside so she could take a look.

“Here you go, baby,” he said, holding her by the waist and easily lifting her up to
see through the opening.

Derek handed the flashlight to Austin, and he held it steady as she took a look around.
“It’s an old curio cabinet.”

“Can you see the silver inside?” Austin asked.

“Yes. It all looks beautiful.”

“Do you see the bookends?” I asked.

“Yes. And books, too.”

“I know,” I said, grinning. “How cool is that?”

Robin slid back down. “It figures you’d see books before anything else.”

“Books and possibly artwork,” Derek said, taking the flashlight back and aiming it
in another direction.

I got closer and found what he was looking at, a spot along the interior wall where
several rolled canvasses stood leaning against the curio cabinet like drunken soldiers.

I moved away so Dad could take a look. After a minute, he stepped back, and Jackson
took his turn.

“What is all this stuff?” I asked. “What’s going on here?”

Derek shook his head. “I have no idea.”

“It’s a treasure trove,” Dad said. “Just got to figure out where it came from.”

“I wish we had a better light,” I muttered.

At that moment, Stan walked up and handed me and Robin our own hard hats.

“Thanks.” I put the rigid plastic hat on my head and felt safer instantly.

Then Stan pulled a long, black, industrial-strength flashlight from his tool belt
and handed it to Derek. “Maybe this will help.”

“Thanks, mate.” Derek pushed the button on the heavy foot-long torch, and the powerful
light filled the room.

“Like night and day,” I said, smiling at Stan. “Thanks.”

He nodded and strolled back outside. A man of few words.

Derek aimed the big flashlight’s beam into the interior space.

“We need to get this wall knocked down,” Dad said.

“Just what I was thinking,” Jackson said, glancing toward the front of the cave. “I’ll
go talk to Stan.”

I stretched up on my toes and poked my head farther through the opening. Derek continued
holding the flashlight above my head. “Wow, over there in the other corner. It’s another
full-sized
dresser with a mirror. There’s a wooden box on top of it that looks like a jewelry
box.”

Derek turned the beam toward the left to allow me a better glimpse.

“It’s beautiful,” I said. “Looks French. Inlaid wood and lots of ormolu.” I was able
to recognize the finely gilded decorative detailing along the edges of the piece,
thanks to Guru Bob, who had an antique desk in that style that I’d admired for years.
He’d been kind enough to describe the history of the design to me.

“Pricey,” Dad said.

“It’s definitely worth a lot,” I murmured.

“But what’s a fancy dresser doing in a cave?” Robin wondered aloud. “And a curio cabinet?
And silver candlesticks?”

“And books,” I added.

“Good question,” Austin said, his tone turning suspicious. “The sooner this wall comes
down, the better.”

I continued to scrutinize the dresser, too fascinated by our discovery to care how
utterly bizarre it was that these amazing treasures were hidden behind a solid wall
of concrete inside the winery storage cave. “That’s definitley a jewelry chest on
top of the dresser. It’s the same inlaid pattern as the dresser. I wonder if there’s
anything inside.”

“Jewels, of course,” Robin said, grinning.

Something caught my eye on the dresser. “Oh, there’s a silver tray with one of those
old-fashioned silver combs and a hairbrush on it. It’s pretty.”

“I’m sure it’s pretty,” Robin said, “but it’s still kind of weird.”

“You’re right,” I said, and shivered a little. “It’s like somebody lives in there.”

I moved out of the way, leaving Derek alone to continue examining the odd crevice.
He angled the flashlight in different directions, casting light onto every inch of
the space. He scanned the low ceiling and ran the beam along the rest of the walls.

I was curious to see what other bounty we would find in there, so I peeked around
Derek to take another look. Seconds later, I let out a piercing shriek.

“What is it?” Austin demanded, crowding me as I tried to push away from the wall.

Robin patted my shoulder. “Knowing Brooklyn, she probably found a dead body.”

Her words barely registered as I pointed a shaky finger at what I saw on the floor
close to the wall.

Derek aimed the beam where I’d indicated and muttered an expletive. He stepped back
from the hole in the wall, turned off the flashlight, and wrapped his arm around my
shoulders.

Robin’s smile faltered. “Derek?”

“You were right, Robin,” Derek said, giving me a soft squeeze of sympathy. “This cave
has just turned into a crime scene.”

In seconds, Derek and Dad had the men rounding up pickaxes and sledgehammers in order
to take down the rest of the wall.

I was shuffled out of the cave and barely had time to deal with another dead-body
encounter.

Stan and his men backed the huge roadheader out of the enclosed space to give everyone
more room. Stan ran and grabbed his own sledgehammer and joined the workers. Concrete
dust was soon billowing out of the large storage cave. I was concerned for the men,
of course, since it was getting hard to breathe, but I knew Derek wouldn’t stop until
he could step right into that inner room. I would’ve grabbed a pickax and gone to
work on the wall myself, but I was certain I would just be in the way. As soon as
the air cleared, though, I was going to jump in and find out who that dead person
was. I had other questions, too. Where had all those beautiful treasures come from?
And at what price?

One of Stan’s men jogged over with a handful of cheap filter masks.

“Will those help?” Robin asked.

“It’ll keep some of the larger particles from getting into their lungs,” he said.

Larger particles?
So the smaller ones would get through? That was not a good answer. Robin and I exchanged
worried looks as the man ran into the cave to hand out the masks.

Less than two minutes later, Derek and Austin stumbled out, covered in dust. Jackson,
Stan, Dad, and one other man followed a few seconds later.

I rushed over to Derek, who was ripping the mask away from his mouth. “Are you all
right?”

“I’m fine,” he said, slapping the dust off his shirt. “But Stan was starting to wheeze,
so I thought we’d better take a break. We’ll wait for the dust to settle before we
go back in.”

“Okay. I don’t want anyone to get sick from breathing that stuff.”

“Nor do I,” he muttered as he bent over to shake more dust out of his hair. “I think
we’ll be all right.”

I scuffled back a few feet to avoid being enveloped in the powdery cloud he’d just
created. I was getting worried. Hadn’t people died from breathing the dust inside
old caves? Didn’t I remember hearing something about archaeologists breathing the
dust of mummies’ tombs? Didn’t they carry strange viruses?

I guess my mind was going a little wacky while I waited for the okay to go back inside.
After another half hour, I was ready to scream. I’d always thought I was a patient
person, but apparently I was wrong because I was beyond anxious to get in there and
figure out who had died in the cave. Everyone else was standing around, chitchatting
and hacking up particles and brushing off more dust. Didn’t anyone else feel the same
urge I felt? Where did all that furniture come from? The silver, the art, the books.
The body. Didn’t anyone want answers?

“I’m going in,” I declared, and began to walk toward the cave.

“Hold on,” Derek said, grabbing my hand.

“Why?” I demanded, prepared to battle against Derek’s innate urge to protect and defend.

He grinned. “Because I’m going with you.”

“Okay.” I calmed down a smidgen. “Good. We’ve waited long enough. We need to check
out that cave and call the police.”

“In that order,” he murmured, clearly resolved to survey the scene of the crime before
raising the alarm. He picked up the flashlight and joined me.

Much of the dust had settled, but we stirred more up with every step we took. I coughed
as some of it got into my throat, and
I wondered how Derek and Dad and the others had withstood it for the thirty minutes
they’d been in here breathing that stuff.

When we got to the back wall, I could see how much work the men had done earlier.
The opening into the hidden room was bigger now, almost the size of a small doorway,
about three feet wide by five feet high. Eighteen inches still remained along the
bottom of the wall, which meant we had to step carefully over the small barrier.

“Good job,” I said, beaming at Derek.

“The men were on a mission.”

I smiled at his words. He made it sound like he was leading his troops off to war.
I ducked my head and stepped over the stone lip. Once on the other side, I was able
to stand without crouching. I had expected the enclosure to feel damp or stuffy, but
the air was clean and I detected a mild floral scent. It was also slightly larger
than I’d thought, maybe fifteen feet long by twelve feet across, the size of a typical
bedroom.

Derek joined me inside the small enclosure, flipped on Stan’s flashlight, and pointed
the beam toward the floor.

That was when I saw the body again.

Although he was facedown, he was obviously a man, and he was pressed up against the
wall as though he’d sought out a secure resting place. I figured that was why we hadn’t
seen him at first. We had been diverted by all of the treasures surrounding him.

He wore an old-fashioned brown suit and had short, dark hair. On the ground near his
right arm was a well-worn brown leather suitcase.

“I wonder if he got trapped here during the ’ninety-seven earthquake,” Dad said.

I glanced up. Dad stood on the other side of the barrier, but he had poked his head
in so he could watch us. Austin and Robin were crowded around him. Jackson had gone
back to work in the
winery, and the rest of the men must have either lost interest or needed to return
to their jobs as well.

“That’s almost twenty years, Jim,” Derek said, touching the dead man’s neck and studying
the change in color. “This man’s skin looks and feels as if he died a few hours ago.”

“Maybe the absence of air helped preserve him,” I said.

“What’re you saying? You think he was mummified?” Austin’s wry tone gave a clear indication
of his opinion of my theory.

I was used to getting snarky comments from my big brothers, so I just shrugged. “Anything’s
possible.”

“Yes,” Derek said, “but let’s see if there’s a more practical explanation.”

“Like maybe he actually died a few hours ago,” Dad suggested. “Except I don’t see
how that’s possible.”

“Nor do I,” Derek said.

“Derek, did you notice how clean the air was when you first stepped inside here?”

He looked at me from across the man’s body. If he hadn’t detected it before, he took
notice now, breathing in deeply through his nose. “Very fresh. And there’s something
else.”

“A light floral scent, right? I was thinking it might be coming from the dresser.
The owner probably used sachets in the drawers. That’s what it smells like to me,
anyway.”

“I can smell it, too,” Robin said, and I gave her a grateful smile. So I wasn’t going
crazy.

Derek handed me the flashlight to hold while he continued to search the man’s clothing
for identification.

My attention was drawn to the small leather suitcase on the other side of the body.
“Can we open that?”

“I don’t suppose he’ll complain if we do,” Derek said, interrupting his search to
move the suitcase away from the dead man.

I set the flashlight down on the ground with the beam pointing to the ceiling. It
diffused the light, but we had enough to see what we were doing. The brass latches
were old-fashioned as well, but Derek got them unhooked and spread the suitcase open.
Inside was a neatly folded stack of men’s clothes packed next to a small black toiletries
bag. Laid on top of the clothing was something I had not expected to see.

“It’s a book,” I whispered.

“A book?” Austin laughed. “Doesn’t that just figure?”

“It sure does,” Dad said.

Derek’s lips twisted in irony as he handed me the book. “Might as well examine it.
This could provide as many answers to this puzzle as anything else in this room.”

“Stranger things have happened.” I aimed the flashlight’s beam at the book’s leather
cover and read the title:
Voyage au Centre de la Terre
by Jules Verne.

Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Is it totally geeky to admit that my fingers were tingling just touching it? It was
covered in three-quarter morocco leather with gilding on the spine. The boards were
marbled. I opened it to the title page to see the date: 1867. It was written in French.
On the same page was a fanciful illustration of a view into a prehistoric world, and
I was hopeful that there would be other illustrations within.

This was not the time or place to study it more fully, but as soon as we were finished
here, I was going to run straight to Abraham’s studio and inspect this book from cover
to cover. Meanwhile, I clutched it for dear life and reluctantly returned my gaze
to the body.

“We can go through the rest of the suitcase later,” Derek said, turning back to the
dead man. “Right now, I’d rather find out who this poor fellow is and what he’s doing
here.”

I stared at the man’s suit jacket, which fit his body well,
although it was longer than most men wore their jackets these days. The shoulders
were padded, and the waist was narrow.

“I’m no fashion maven,” I said, stating what everyone in my world thought was obvious,
“but I think that style and the shade of brown are from the forties or fifties.”

I heard Robin snicker, and I shot her a smile. She was the one who knew fashion and
had always been willing to share her best ideas with me.

“You’re right, love,” Derek said, pondering the situation. After a moment, he said,
“I’d like to photograph the body before we turn him over. Can you stand up and hold
the flashlight steady?”

“Sure.” I stood and set the book down on the dresser nearest the wall, then picked
up the flashlight and focused the beam of light directly on the dead man. Derek pulled
out his phone and began snapping photographs from every possible angle.

After at least twenty clicks, he stopped and slid the phone back into his pocket.
“That should do it.”

“Good.” I knelt down beside him. “Does he have a wallet or ID on him?”

“Not in his back pockets. I hope to find something in his suit pockets, but we’ll
have to turn him over to find out.”

“Let’s do it.”

He looked up at my brother. “Austin, can you give me a hand?”

“Sure thing.” My brother stepped into the space and knelt down next to Derek. Together
they carefully rolled the man over onto his back while I held the flashlight.

“How did he get in here?” Austin wondered aloud, studying the man’s face. “He looks
like he died just a little while ago.”

“And not from natural causes,” I muttered as my stomach began to churn. “That’s a
lot of caked blood on the side of his head.”

“And there’s a bullet hole in his chest,” Derek said flatly, pointing out the frayed
hole in the lapel.

“No earthquake did that,” Dad conceded.

Derek scowled. “No, a killer did that. We’d better call the authorities.”

*   *   *

B
efore calling the sheriff’s department to report a murder from who-knew-how-long-ago,
Derek searched the man’s pockets thoroughly and held up his findings: a French passport
and a business-sized envelope.

I was surprised when Derek slit open the envelope and pulled out its contents. He
was often a stickler for following the rules, but since he’d come from the world of
clandestine law enforcement in England, I knew he preferred to find the answers on
his own.

“What is it?” I asked.

“A ticket,” he said, holding up a rectangular piece of paper for everyone to see.
“He’s booked passage from New York to Southampton on the
Queen Mary
.”

“The
Queen Mary
,” Robin echoed. “The ocean liner?”

“Yes. It’s dated April 12, 1946.”

We all needed a moment to figure that one out.

Staring down at the body, Austin scratched his head. “That’s, like, seventy years
ago.”

“Brilliant,” Robin said, patting his arm. “But we just agreed that the guy looks like
he died a few hours ago.”

“He does,” I said, “but his clothes are more in line with the date on that ticket.
Like I said, the nineteen forties or fifties.”

Robin shook her head slowly. “This is weird.”

“Maybe he’s an actor,” Dad suggested, “and died wearing a costume.”

“And the ticket is a prop?” Robin said.

“Or some kind of souvenir,” I said.

Austin shrugged. “That makes as much sense as anything else, I guess.”

“Derek, what does the passport say?”

Derek opened the passport and read the name. “‘Jean Pierre Renaud.’ And the name on
the passenger ticket is the same.”

“That’s pretty elaborate for a theatrical prop.”

“It is,” Derek said. “I don’t believe this man was an actor, nor do I believe the
ticket is a prop.”

“So you believe he died here seventy years ago?” I asked. “That’s awfully hard to
swallow.”

“It’s a mystery.” Derek stood and brushed more dust off his trousers. “However, if
it is a case of mummification, the body will begin to decompose rapidly at this point.
The authorities need to get here as quickly as possible.”

“I contacted them,” Dad said. “They won’t be here for another forty minutes or so.”
He reached into his pocket for his cell phone. “I’m going to call Robson, too.”

Yes, I thought. Guru Bob would certainly want to know about this. I glanced up at
Derek. “I know I mentioned it first, but seriously, how in the world could this body
have been mummified? Wouldn’t you need to remove the organs and coat it in resin or
something?” I vaguely recalled those details, thanks to a museum presentation I’d
attended during a high school field trip.

He aimed the flashlight around the space. “This wall had to have been built within
hours of the man’s death. Once that was done, as you were correct to suggest, a lack
of air, combined with this cold, dry space, helped preserve him.”

“Truly bizarre,” Robin murmured.

Guru Bob walked into the cave barely ten minutes after Dad called him. Everyone stood
in silence, watching his reaction to what we’d discovered.

He was clearly upset by the presence of the body. We’d all
been shaken, but Guru Bob seemed to take it more personally. A man had been murdered
in Dharma. His home. His sanctuary.