Emory awoke just before dawn, anxious to investigate the events of the previous night. Plus, the fact that Eden had commandeered the guest room, relegating him to the fainting couch in the den, didn’t help him sleep longer than necessary. He could have slept in Tommy’s room again or even on a luxurious recliner in the movie theatre, but he felt an uneasiness as he descended the stairs so opted not to go beyond the main level. He glanced at the luggage by the secretary desk. I guess I should be grateful she let me get our stuff before locking me out.
He threw on some fresh clothes, grabbed the rendering Virginia found in the office desk and hurried up the stairs. At least now I won’t need a distraction to check out Blair Geister’s bedroom.
When he opened the door to the master bedroom, he noticed an odd scent in the air. Is that ozone? He unfolded the rendering and checked it against the placement of everything in the room. Looks like all’s where it should be.
He approached the gold bed but hesitated to touch it. He gave the nearer foot post a quick tap with his knuckles. Although he felt nothing, he opted to avoid contact with any of the metal.
He placed the rendering on top of the comforter and scanned every inch of the bed but saw no wires or mechanisms to explain the electrifying display from the night before. The only thing in contact with the bed is the floor. He dropped to his hands and knees to get a closer look at the hardwood floor, focusing on the areas around the bed posts. All seemed fine until he reached the left post of the headboard. He spotted a small deviation in the wood, something that would’ve gone unnoticed had he not been on his hands and knees looking for it. The slat under the post was shorter than the other slats in the floor – about six inches long. Emory tapped the short slat with his fingernail and heard a slight ting. He tapped the surrounding slats, and they all thumped. It’s definitely different.
“What are you doing?” a voice asked from behind him.
Emory jerked up, hitting the back of his head on the side rail of the bedframe.
Virginia winced in sympathy. “Ooh, sorry. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Emory stood and rubbed the back of his head. “I need to move this bed.”
“How heavy is it?” Virginia reached for the left post of the footboard.
Emory stopped her before she made contact with the metal. “Don’t touch it!” He went to the other side of the bed and pulled the sheet from under the bedspread. He looped it around the far-right post of the headboard and handed one end of the fabric to Virginia. Together they scooted the heavy bed a couple of inches. “That should do it.” He returned to the short slat in the floor. “Can you find something I could use to pry up this floorboard?”
Virginia scanned the bedroom before disappearing into the bathroom. She came back a moment later with a stainless-steel Mac cosmetic spatula. “Will this work? Uh, what happened to your shirt?”
Emory’s shirt was now wrapped around his left hand. “I don’t want to get electrocuted.” He took the spatula from her. “It should work.” Within a few seconds, he had pried the piece loose. He pulled it up with his shirt-wrapped hand, but something prevented lifting it more than a few inches. He turned it over to reveal electrical wires running from inside the floor to the slat. “It looks like wood on top, but it’s metal.”
“You need to cut the wire. Hang on.” Virginia ran into the bathroom and came back with grooming scissors.
Emory snapped pictures with his phone before taking the scissors and cutting each of the wires. He handed the metal slat to Virginia, and stood to put on his shirt.
“It’s copper,” she said. “This means you were right.”
“Blair Geister was murdered.” Emory looked at the cut wires in the floor. “When this room was renovated, someone took the opportunity to plan an electrocution for her.”
Virginia knelt for a moment to inspect the hole in the floor. “Look at the black sheath on the wiring. Standard house wiring has white sheathing.”
“How do you know that?”
“My dad was an electrician. During summers, he’d sometimes take me on jobs, and I’d be his helper.”
“It must be controlled by a switch somewhere. How long do you think it would take to rig something like this?”
Virginia thought for a moment. “Maybe an hour.”
“For you, but you have some experience.”
“That doesn’t matter. You can find tutorials online.”
“Which means anyone could’ve come into this house during the two weeks the bedroom was being renovated and spent an hour setting this up to kill Blair Geister.”
“And used the rendering to know exactly where the bed would be.”
Emory sighed. “That leaves a wide window of opportunity, which means really no one has an alibi.”
Virginia felt the wall above the opening in the floor. “We need to see what the wiring is connected to so we can figure out how it was controlled.”
Emory agreed. “There has to be a toolbox around here somewhere.”
A few minutes later, the PIs were back in the room with a hammer. Emory aimed the head at the wall and was about to swing but stopped himself. “We’re not supposed to damage the property.”
Virginia scoffed. “We’re not looking for that stupid Box. We’re looking for a murderer.”
“You’re right. Hopefully, this won’t count.” Emory pounded a hole into the wall above the one in the floor and pulled away a chunk of the drywall.
Virginia pointed to the white horizontal wire that passed behind the vertical black wire. “See, there’s the standard wiring there.”
Emory hammered more holes into the wall, following the black wire up to the bottom of the Cathedral ceiling. “The black one continues up.”
Virginia eyed the ceiling. “The only thing above this room is the roof.”
Emory dropped the hammer on the bed. “I need a ladder.”
“Maybe there’s one in the garage?” The PIs headed downstairs and found the garage door on the main level near the kitchen. Virginia opened the door to a spotless eight-car garage, home to several luxury electric vehicles. “Look at these cars. Ooh, one of these things is not like the other.”
Emory spotted it too. In the far space was a twenty-year-old gas-engine utility truck. “Why would she have that?”
“Maybe she needed it for taking supplies to construction sites. Virginia waved toward the electric cars. “These aren’t really for hauling.”
Emory spotted a telescoping ladder hung from two bicycle hooks on the wall beyond the truck. “There it is.” He glanced inside the cab of the truck and spotted a silver, rectangular box on the passenger-side floor. “Hang on.”
“What is it?”
He opened the door, reached for the box and popped its lid. His shoulders slumped. “Just a toolbox.”
Virginia smirked at him. “You thought that was the Pangram Box, didn’t you?”
“Not really, but I had to check.” Emory picked up a credit-card-sized paper from the floor mat. “She went to see a movie in Knoxville a couple nights before she died.” He held it up for her to see. “Parking stub for Leland Cinemas.”
“I hope it was good – last movie and all.” Virginia opened the ashtray. “Look what I found.” She held up a joint.
“Huh. I wonder if Juniper gave it to her.”
They closed the doors and returned their attention to the ladder. Virginia helped Emory get it down from the wall. “Hey, before we go climbing on rooftops, how about some coffee to wake up?”
Emory assumed the full weight of the ladder. “I’m good.”
“Let me get a pot started for myself, and I’ll be right out. Don’t start climbing without me.”
Virginia headed to the kitchen but caught the aroma of fresh coffee before she entered. She found a red-eyed Eden sitting at the island bar and clutching a mug with both hands. “Eden, are you okay?”
Eden wiped her eyes. “Oh, yes. Just didn’t sleep well. I perked some coffee. Enough for us all.”
“I understand.” Virginia poured herself a cup. “You could’ve died last night.”
“What the Bell Witch was that?”
Virginia sat on the barstool next to her. “I’m not sure.”
“The other night, I thought I heard humming coming from the bed, but I couldn’t figure out why.”
Virginia sipped her coffee. That’s what she was doing under the bed.
“Do you think that’s what happened to Blair?”
Virginia didn’t answer because she saw a ladder go by the window. “Actually, I need to—”
“On top everything else, the man I’ve been seeing broke up with me this morning.”
I wonder if Emory was right. If so, why would the gardener break up with her? Virginia placed a hand on her back. “I’m sorry. Why?”
“He said we had become too serious and he wasn’t ready for that.”
Virginia shook her head. More likely, he found out how comparatively little she’s getting in the will.
Emory carried the ladder around the house and propped it against the wall near the den window – above which was Blair Geister’s bedroom. He stood the ladder up on the narrow walkway between the wall and the edge of the pool but didn’t like the resulting angle. “Too steep.”
He looked to the right, at the rounded exterior wall to the locutorium. It had a circular roof that didn’t connect with the one above the master bedroom. He glanced at the pool, which extended the length of the wall, and he realized he had no optimal place to position a ladder on this side of the house. He grabbed the ladder and continued walking around the house. Once he turned the first corner, he noticed the property line fence just behind the thick hedge of skip laurel. Beyond that stood one of the walls of Edgar Strand’s house.
“The houses are so close on this end.” He looked up at Geisterhaus. “No wonder she has no windows on this side.” He craned his neck to try spotting the purported gargoyles on the slope of the roof without success.
He continued to the south side of the house and stood the ladder in a spot he estimated would be across the house from the master bedroom. “I think that’s the last gym window before the sauna.” He thought about waiting for Virginia, but his curiosity proved impatient.
Emory ascended the ladder to the grey-tiled roof. Once his hand clasped around the top rung, the metal gutter at his waist, he glanced at the lawn two stories down. “Oh, this is a bad idea.”
The words didn’t keep him from stepping off the ladder and crawling onto the roof. He soon discovered he couldn’t get far from the edge, however, because solar panels covered the entire slope of the main southern roof. “I can’t walk on those. I’ll have to go around.”
He began crawling eastward, toward Edgar Strand’s house, but he stopped after several feet. “These tiles are killing my knees.”
He took a deep breath and pushed himself to his feet, hunching over to keep his center of gravity low. The path before him, between the solar panels and the gutter, was no more than two-feet wide. “Just don’t look down.” He started walking, his arms out for balance.
The solar array continued unabated until he reached a pronounced edge in the roof. He stepped over the edge to the slope facing the Strand house, and there he saw the backs of the three gargoyles. He continued to the next edge and scooched onto the slope over the office and master bedroom.
In the distance he saw the large antenna he and Jeff had spotted during their walk along the river, and he realized it was above the bedroom. Once he reached it, he crawled down to the gutter and popped his head over the edge to ensure he was in the right place. He saw the pool and the spot he had first propped up the ladder. “This is it.”
He estimated where the black wire that ran up the bedroom wall would’ve come into contact with the roof. Two inches from his estimation, he spotted an aluminum cable concealer stretching all the way to the antenna. He walked back to the antenna and tapped it with his knuckles. No shocks. He clasped it with his left hand, and the tip of his middle finger just met the tip of his thumb. “I think this is too thick for an antenna.”
Emory heard a crash to his left, like broken glass. He hurried across the roof to investigate and slowed when he reached the edge, looking over at the slope with the gargoyles. He heard a whooshing sound and saw an executioner’s axe flying right at his neck!
Emory fell back and lost his balance. He slid down the slick tiles, trying to grip something, but there was nothing to hold on to. He couldn’t stop.