Chapter 50

Heading down the steep, narrow staircase Bruno felt the weight of all the recent events pressing in on him. He could hear his heart thudding inside his chest. The nameless girl. Gussie. Maggie. Mimi. Icky. He was still a kid, really. Alison too. Maybe Biff was right. Maybe it was time to start taking things personally. Like it or not, he was in harm’s way. He’d been selected. He was a target, a combatant.

It wasn’t about emotion interfering with his psychic ability or mental state. Or power corrupting. He had no selfish purpose here. It was self-defense. If he waited for the killer to make his move, he’d likely be dead. It was as simple as that.

Bruno heard the Chief’s voice ahead of him, “Remember this is a crime scene. Keep your eyes open and your hands in your pockets.”

The basement of the Lenape King was, in fact, a series of brick-lined chambers. Each room was on a different level. Some required several steps to get in or out of. Others were separated by a sill of two or three inches. The mortar between the bricks was drying out, leaving piles of gritty gray powder everywhere.

They wandered around from one dank chamber to the next. The basement was poorly lit and it seemed like they might be walking in circles. Finally they stumbled into a room that was full of furniture. It was Icky’s boudoir, containing all the items he’d brought in to make himself comfortable during the long hours when he was supposed to be the inn’s night watchman. There was his filthy mattress covered with deplorable sheets. The cheap wooden bureau topped with a reading light and an overflowing ashtray. A Shop-Vac—they heard Mr. Spurrier murmuring, “I wondered where that had gone …”—and assorted piles of clothing, both male and female.

The Chief pulled on latex gloves. He was picking items up with tweezers and dropping them into Ziploc baggies, measuring, drawing diagrams, and taking notes feverishly.

Bruno was overwhelmed. Memories from his school days were starting to come back to him. “This used to be part of the Underground Railroad, didn’t it?” he asked Mr. Spurrier.

“That’s nothing but myth or legend,” the curator explained with a long-suffering sigh. “Of course there was a lot going on throughout this area. The Quakers were quite active in the abolition movement. However, there are no documented efforts to help runaway slaves escape through Gardenfield. The center of activity was Philadelphia; they moved slaves north along the Delaware, crossing the river at Burlington. Or else through Lawnside. All of this has been thoroughly documented by experts in the field. The curious thing is that the legends about this place persist, despite all the evidence. I can’t understand it.”

“Look at this,” the Chief called out gleefully. He had secured a cigarette butt with the tweezers and was holding it up like a trophy-sized fish for the world to see. “Gauloises. Pretty sophisticated taste for teenagers.” He bagged it and moved to the next item, which provoked an excited, “Bless my soul, look at this. Bruno, quick, put your gloves on.”

As Bruno struggled into the latex gloves, the Chief asked Mr. Spurrier, “Was this place used as a dungeon?”

The curator stepped back and rolled his eyes. “Another myth. The basement was a storage area for beer kegs. There were locked iron gates on some of these rooms to prevent the help from stealing.”

“I see. And what did they use those iron rings for?”

“It’s possible that prisoners were kept here, at times, during the Revolutionary War. However, we believe those rings were used as a sort of pulley system for lifting heavy items: beer kegs, food stuffs, and such.”

“Hmm? You mean to tie down the ends of the rope, or to give the men doing the hoisting some leverage? That makes sense. But then where are the actual pulleys? Wouldn’t there be some evidence of them in the ceiling near the center of the room?”

He handed around Polaroids that depicted Icky or Alison chained to metal rings that were bolted into the wall. Neither was wearing a stitch of clothing.

“That little bastard,” hissed Mr. Spurrier. “If he weren’t dead, I’d fire him!”

“Quite the love nest,” mused the Chief. “I can see it now: a new legend in the making for the Lenape King. If you handle this right, Mr. Spurrier, you’ll have more visitors than you ever dreamed of …”

Bruno left the Chief and Mr. Spurrier mulling over the possibilities. He had to see the room with the iron rings. A few minutes later, he reemerged, panting and flushed with excitement. “Come quick! I found something!” The Chief and Mr. Spurrier dropped everything and followed him. “You’re not going to believe this,” the psychic promised.

And he was right.

Bruno seemed to have developed a keen sense of direction down in the Lenape’s basement. He led them unerringly to the very last chamber, which was the one with the iron rings. Actually, now there was only a single ring attached to the wall. The other had pulled free and was lying on top of a pile of crumpled bricks. Next to the pile was a ragged hole, about two and a half feet in diameter. “Feel the breeze?” Bruno shouted, waving his hand in front of the opening.

The Chief moved forward with his flashlight at the ready. “It’s a tunnel. I can only see about 30 yards back, but it’s a tunnel, alright.”

Mr. Spurrier bounded forward and tried to restrain him. “You can’t go in there. This is an historic artifact, an important archeological site. We have to wait …”

The Chief gently extricated himself from his grasp. “This doesn’t exist,” he reminded Mr. Spurrier. “Remember, all of the experts have determined the Underground Railroad passed Gardenfield by. Besides, it’s already been compromised; Alison and Icky have already been through it, who knows how many times? That means it’s my responsibility to check out what they’ve been up to.”

With that he disappeared into the hole, and Bruno followed. Chief Black felt twinges of guilt as he moved through the tunnel. It was only about four feet tall, with roots protruding from every direction, so he had to walk with care, bent over with his head out in front of his knees. The flooring was packed earth, and he could see traces of footprints moving through in both directions. He tried to stay to the right in order to leave as many intact as possible. But there was no question that recent use had probably destroyed historical evidence. That was too bad. He knew exactly how he would have felt if archeologists had interfered with his crime scene. It was just a case of competing and mutually exclusive interests. Lives were at stake.

Spurrier would just have to deal with it. And, the Chief consoled himself, the tunnel’s support beams appeared to bear carved inscriptions. If this proved to be 150-year-old graffiti from escaping slaves, Mr. Spurrier and his experts would have an incredible find on their hands. In fact, it would attract so much attention, it’d probably be best not to say anything about it until the investigation concluded.

Finally Chief Black reached the end of the tunnel. He guessed it must have extended a couple of hundred yards. Right above him was a trap door. He opened it cautiously and found himself staring out at the back of a row of benches. He was in the Friends meeting house. The trap door was hidden in the floorboards of the first landing of the stairs that led up to the loft.

“Now we know how Ginnie Doe found her way into the meeting house without breaking in or leaving any trace,” Chief Black reported when he had returned to the basement of the tavern. He was talking on his radio but staring directly at Bruno as he announced, “And, we know who brought her there. We’re still looking for Alison Wales, except now she’s not a witness. Now she’s our number-one suspect.”