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AMY ROSE. “I’m going to see if Shelley needs help with the guests.”
I lifted a sleepy Sexy Beast and followed Amy into the house. “I’d like to say hi to Woody. I didn’t see him when I got here.”
The young couple had already changed into dry duds. They were enjoying a leisurely tour of the main floor and peppering Shelley with questions about Oswald Collingwood’s ignominious demise and Percival Ruskin’s got-what-was coming-to-him poisoning death.
In case you thought I was, you know, exaggerating the appeal of the grisly goings-on in the B&B’s history.
The little group was in the front parlor, examining Oswald’s portrait. It turned out Cherry Tagliaferro and her husband, Alex, were both history buffs. They were also both blond, both middle-school art teachers, and both just so darn adorable. They found every detail of this historic inn, no matter how insignificant, of absorbing interest.
Since Shelley seemed to have everything under control, Amy excused herself to check out the installation of the new hot tub on the deck.
“So that’s what’s going on back there,” I said. As soon as I’d stepped inside, I’d heard muted male voices, along with some banging and clanging, coming from behind the house. “I’m guessing that’s where I’ll find Woody.”
“You know men,” Shelley said. “Construction projects are like catnip to them.”
“Come on, SB. Let’s go say hi.”
I followed the sounds of activity to the back door and stepped onto the rain-damp wooden deck, taking care not to get in the way of the beauteous Jankovic brothers as they prepared to supply power to The Gabbling Goose’s new spa. The brothers wore snug tee-shirts, snugger jeans, and those big leather tool belts that I’ve decided look sexy as all get-out, don’t ask me why. One of the brothers was installing an electrical panel on the back wall of the house, while the other took precise measurements to determine where to run the conduit from the main circuit breaker inside.
Earlier in the week, a large, square opening had been carved into the deck, and the brand-spanking-new spa sunk into it. A section of decking next to the tub had been turned into a removable access panel to expose the working guts of the spa.
I joined Woody Bernstein, Ty Collingwood, and Amy, who were observing the process from several feet away. Woody and Ty, standing with arms crossed, provided play-by-play commentary. I doubted either of these electrical geniuses had so much as replaced a switch plate cover.
Even the presence of the beauteous Jankovics wasn’t enough to keep boredom at bay, and I was mentally debating how to get Woody alone for a little chat when he said, “Well, I’d better go put away the stuff they delivered from Costco.”
“I’ll help you!” I said.
Back inside the house, he opened a heavy door off the kitchen, and we descended a set of scarred wooden stairs to the cool, dark basement. Woody flipped light switches, illuminating the huge room.
I gazed in awe at our surroundings, from the low, timbered ceiling to the massive brick support columns to the humongous, soot-stained fireplace which dominated one of the ancient brick walls. Three adults could have stood inside that fireplace, though they’d have to make room for the large black kettle that hung from an iron crane bolted to the bricks. A domed baking oven was built into the wall next to the fireplace.
“I’m guessing this was the original kitchen,” I said.
He nodded. “Back then they wanted to keep the smoke and odors and all that away from the main part of the house. You can take that little fella off the leash if you want. There’s not much trouble he can get into down here.”
He had a point. This room was fairly clean and free of clutter, and SB was squirming in my arms, eager to explore. The instant I set him on the cement floor—long ago poured on top of the original dirt floor, I assumed—he began to patrol the perimeter, and I could only wonder at the wealth of information imparted by his superpowered schnoz.
A large, rough-hewn farm table occupied the middle of the room, piled high with cases of paper towels, toilet paper, soda, and assorted nonperishable foodstuffs Woody had purchased in bulk from the no-frills retail warehouse. Against one long wall were several heavy-duty plastic shelving units, partially filled with canned goods and other supplies.
I heard a trilling purr and saw that Toby had decided to join us. The big cat and SB lost no time renewing their acquaintance and chasing each other around the room.
Woody transferred a couple of supersize tubs of mixed nuts from the table to a shelf. “Toby keeps the place free of vermin, but I still wouldn’t keep any food down here that wasn’t sealed up tight.”
“Don’t blame you.” I moved a jumbo bottle of laundry detergent onto a shelf. I knew it would take no more than a couple of minutes to accomplish our chore, so I didn’t waste time on small talk. “So, Woody. I understand Werker and Kaplan interviewed you again.” When he frowned in confusion, I added, “The police detectives.”
“Oh. Yes, they talked to all of us right after Amy’s fella did himself in out there.” He shook his head and picked up a box of double-A batteries. “Terrible business. Do you know about that?”
“I do. Terrible.” Obviously he didn’t recall that I was the one who discovered Stu’s body. “They also spoke with you again yesterday. The detectives.”
He paused, thought about it, and nodded. “We went to the police station. I’d never been there. It’s not like on TV. Those detectives are all right, especially the lady. Candy, I believe her name was.”
“Cookie,” I said. “Cookie Kaplan.” Well, anyone can make a mistake like that, right? I’d had a hard time recalling her name at first myself. I lifted a plastic-wrapped case of toilet paper, thirty-six rolls, and found a spot for it on a high shelf. “You know what seems strange? No one saw Stu Ruskin out there in the hot tub the night he died. I mean, you know, while he was still alive.”
“Not true.” Woody grabbed a bundle of a dozen paper towel rolls, huge but lightweight, and shoved it next to the toilet paper. “I saw him with my own two eyes, and he was alive then.”
“How do you know?” I asked. “Was he moving?”
“No, he was just relaxing. Maybe dozing.”
“So then, um, couldn’t he have already been, you know...?”
“Well, the way he went, shot in the face like that...” Woody shook his head. “What I mean to say is, his face looked normal. Sorry, young lady. I shouldn’t have been so graphic.”
I waved away his concern. You want graphic, come along on some of my Death Diva jobs. I didn’t know what Woody had been told, but Stu had not, in fact, been shot in the face. His face appeared normal when I discovered his corpse that night. From where Woody had stood on the deck, the bloody stone coping under Stu’s head would not have been visible. Plus, of course, Woody had been viewing the scene at a distance by moonlight.
He could very well have been looking at a dead man. Or not. There was simply no way to know.
“What time was that?” I asked.
“About ten o’clock,” he said. “I always go out back around that time, to check for anything the guests might’ve left, especially dirty dishes. Those raccoons are always on the prowl for leftovers. No sense encouraging them. Do you have a raccoon problem where you live? I swear, those critters get bolder every year.”
“Um, to get back to Stu in the hot tub,” I said, “you must’ve been surprised to see him there.”
“Well, I’d noticed him out there with Amy once or twice during the past few months,” he said. “They never knew I saw them, and I never mentioned it to Shelley because I figured it was Amy’s business. She’s an adult now and can make her own decisions.”
I was about to offer some inane platitude about his wise reasoning when he picked up a case of chocolate chip cookies and added, “But this time I did tell Shelley, because it was just Stu out there, alone. Amy wasn’t with him. That didn’t seem right to me.”
“Wait,” I said, “Shelley knew he was out there that night?”
“Yep.” He shoved the cookies onto one of the middle shelves. “She stormed out there to give him what for.”
“And how did that go?” I asked.
“I didn’t stay for the show,” he said. “I was in the front parlor taking care of the guests. I imagine she fussed and fumed at Stu, not that it did her any good, because we all know what he did after she went back inside.”
Meaning he didn’t leave the premises, as Shelley would no doubt have demanded. Instead, he removed his gun from his leather backpack, attached the silencer to the muzzle, and committed suicide. That was what Woody, Shelley, and Amy believed—or claimed to believe.
Assuming Woody’s version of events is accurate, his wife went outside that night around ten o’clock to confront the trespasser. Not just any trespasser, mind you, but a Ruskin. And not just any Ruskin, but the detestable Ruskin who’d managed to turn her darling Amy’s head until she’d lost all sense of reason.
Assuming Stu was still alive at that point, would Shelley have restricted herself to “fussing and fuming”? And if their encounter had left her mad enough to kill, how could a lone eighty-year-old woman have accomplished the deed?
Of course, there was always the possibility we weren’t dealing with a lone murderer. Not for the first time, several potential pairings presented themselves to my overstimulated imagination.
“Did you happen to mention it to anyone else besides Shelley?” I asked. “You know, that you saw Stu out there in the hot tub?”
He took his time thinking about his answer as he wedged a box of kitchen sponges between the laundry detergent and a tub of chocolate-covered almonds I’d been trying to ignore. There must have been three pounds there. They wouldn’t miss a handful, right?
Finally he said, “You know, I think I might’ve told someone else, but I can’t be sure. My memory’s not what it used to be. One thing I do remember is what that great lady Bette Davis once said—that old age ain’t for sissies. She got that one right.”
“I noticed that you called Stu ‘Amy’s fella.’ How serious were they?”
“Well, they were going to get married,” Woody said. “I’d call that pretty darn serious.”
“Amy told you they were engaged?”
“I overheard Amy and Shelley talking about it in the kitchen back in... well, I know it had to be close to Thanksgiving because I’d just bought the turkey, and I was in the pantry, trying to find room for it in the freezer.”
“They didn’t know you were in there?” I asked.
“Nope. The door was open, but it’s a big pantry and I was all the way in the back. I heard Amy and Shelley talking about the engagement. Well, it was more of an argument. I distinctly heard Shelley say, ‘Mark my words, that man is using you.’”
Woody’s recollection had enough detail to convince me it was a legitimate memory. But so what? In the end, did it matter that he knew about the engagement? That it wasn’t the well-kept secret Amy and Shelley seemed to think it was?
A little voice in the back of my mind told me it very well might be significant, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how.
I grabbed a heavy case of soda cans before Woody could get to it. He seemed fit enough, but let’s face it, I was half his age. “If you could just make a little room on the bottom there,” I said, “I think this will just about fit.”
He did so, while grumbling, “What kind of gentleman lets a lady do the heavy lifting?”
I positioned the case of soda on the shelf as someone’s heavy work boots thundered down the staircase. “Trust me,” I said, “I can use the exercise.”
One of the beauteous Jankovics entered, carrying a big toolbox. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said, with a dazzling smile. “You look like you’re in pretty good shape already.”
And yes, I admit it, I giggled.
Do not judge me. You never saw the beauteous Jankovics. You don’t know.
He strode across the room and set his toolbox down next to the back wall, the one closest to the deck. The main circuit breaker, sprouting multiple wires leading to the rest of the house, was located on the adjacent wall.
Flipping open the toolbox, he produced a cordless, caged work light and hung it on one of the scary wrought-iron hooks protruding from the ceiling timbers. He switched it on, retrieved a steel measuring tape and a permanent marker from his tool belt, and turned to Woody. “Sir, would you happen to have some sort of stepstool or something I can stand on? It would save me a trip out to the van.”
Thrilled to be part of this manly endeavor, Woody said, “Sure thing,” and opened a heavy door that led to what I could only assume was a storage room. He emerged seconds later with a paint-spattered stepstool. “Will this do?”
“That’s perfect. Thank you, sir.”
I scooped up Sexy Beast so he wouldn’t get in the electrician’s way. I tried to steer Toby to the front of the room, but you know what they say about herding cats. I did manage to annoy her enough to send her racing upstairs with an indignant chirp, so it was all good.
We watched as Jankovic took careful measurements and marked a spot high up on the wall. Woody crept closer to the action as the electrician donned leather gloves and safety glasses, and inserted a long drill bit into the biggest cordless drill I’d ever seen.
And if you’re waiting for me to make a rude comment about that, you can keep waiting, because I’m a lady.
Stop snickering.
Jankovic mounted the stepstool and began to drill. The noise made SB yip in alarm, and I tightened my hold on him.
Woody crossed his arms and announced with authority, “That’s a special masonry drill bit. It’s for drilling into brick.”
I actually knew that, believe it or not. The skills one picks up as a Death Diva. Don’t even ask.
“Right now he’s drilling a pilot hole,” he added. “He’ll need to enlarge it for the conduit.”
Okay, knew that, too.
I watched the muscles in Jankovic’s arms and shoulders flex in the most distracting way as he wielded the drill. Finally he turned it off, shoved the safety glasses up on his head, and gave the wall a couple of hard thumps. “Yo!” he hollered. “How’s it look out there?”
No response.
“Yo! Bro! Is the hole in the right spot?”
When he still received no response, he huffed in frustration, said, “’Scuse me, folks,” and took the steps three at a time to go back upstairs.
Woody and I looked at each other and shrugged. I set Sexy Beast back down on the floor. We hadn’t quite finished putting away the purchases. Working together, the two of us managed to shoehorn a case of microwave popcorn, a pretzel variety pack, a bag of turkey jerky, and about a thousand cans of premium cat food onto the shelves.
As we were finishing up, the beauteous Jankovics appeared, as well as Ty and Amy.
“I’m not making it up, bro.” The drill-wielding Jankovic—let’s call him Jankovic Number One—marched over to the back wall and pointed to his handiwork. “Same exact measurements as outside.”
“You measured wrong, bro,” his brother said.
“I did not measure wrong. I know how to measure, bro.” Jankovic Number One was getting red in the face. On him it looked good.
I turned to Amy and murmured, “What’s going on?”
“There’s no hole on the outside,” she said. “The drill didn’t go through.”
Jankovic Number Two produced his own steel tape and remeasured, ending up at the exact spot where the hole had been drilled. He scowled. “You didn’t go all the way through,” he said.
“I did go all the way through.” Jankovic Number One shoved the drill at his brother, who stepped onto the stepstool and inserted the long drill bit into the hole, up to the hilt.
“See? Do not question my measuring or my drilling, bro. That’s disrespectful.”
Jankovic Number Two hopped off the stepstool and turned to Ty, who was watching the proceedings with a perplexed frown. “Could there be something behind this wall, Mr. Collingwood? Some kind of crawlspace maybe?”
Ty started to shake his head, then turned to Woody. “You know this place better than anyone, Woody. You ever hear of a space that got bricked up?”
“No, and the brick on that wall is as old as the rest of this place.” He spread his arms to indicate the rustic seventeenth-century brickwork surrounding us. It all matched.
Woody went to the bottom of the stairs and called up to Shelley, who came downstairs with Cherry and Alex Tagliaferro in tow. It was starting to get pretty crowded down there. Amy quickly got Shelley up to speed.
“So that’s what all the yelling was about,” Shelley said. “I don’t know anything about any space behind that wall.”
“Ooh.” Cherry’s eyes shone. “A secret room.”
Alex grinned. “I’d say we’re getting our money’s worth. Do you do this for all the guests or are we special?”
“We have an inspection camera in the van.” Jankovic Number Two started toward the stairs. “It’s got this skinny scope. I’ll just shove it in that hole and we can see—”
“No.” Ty’s expression had turned obdurate. “Break it down.”
“What?” Amy turned her startled gaze on her father. “There’s no need for that, Dad. Let them look in there first, see what we’re dealing with.”
But Ty was already striding toward the storage room. “Do we have a sledgehammer, Woody?”
“Uh, yeah, but...” He watched his boss disappear through the doorway, then gave an elaborate shrug.
Ty reappeared carrying a massive sledgehammer with a three-foot-long handle, which he carried to the back wall.
“Dad!” Amy rushed toward him. “Let someone else do that.”
But he’d already taken the first swing. Fragments of brick and mortar flew as he hauled back for a second blow.
Amy grabbed his arm. “Dad, please!” She sent the electricians a pleading look, wordlessly asking them to take over. Obviously she was concerned about her father’s heart condition.
Sexy Beast decided that what this situation required was a seven-pound poodle running up to the man with the enormous sledgehammer and scolding him with rapid-fire barking. Amy got to the little troublemaker before I did, and handed him to me.
Jankovic Number One addressed Ty. “You sure about this, Mr. Collingwood?”
“I’m sure.” He was immovable. “This wall has to go. There’s something back there, something... important. I just know it.”
Ah, so that was it. Ty Collingwood had spent his entire life searching for his ancestor Sybille’s punch recipe. His quest had turned into a fixation. He’d looked everywhere—except in a bricked-up space he never knew existed.
“You’re the boss.” The electrician took the hammer from him. He put his leather gloves and safety glasses back on. “Please stand back, sir, ma’am.”
Ty and Amy retreated as he took his first swing. Within a few minutes he’d created a small opening and began to chip away at its edges. Jankovic Number Two offered to spell him. “Nope, I’m good.” He wiped the sweat from his face with a bandana and gave his brother a pointed look. “Something else I know how to do, bro. Demolish walls.”
When the opening was about eighteen inches in diameter, Jankovic took a break and stepped back. We all rushed forward as one, half stumbling on the rubble under our feet, eager to check it out. I was at the front of the group with Ty, and the first thing that struck me was the musty smell wafting from the dark space behind the bricks.
Ty snatched the work light from its hook and thrust it into the opening, leaning in as far as he could manage. After a few seconds he jerked back, slamming his head on the ragged opening and losing his grip on the light, which fell into the space.
“Dad!” Amy cried. “Are you okay?”
He stumbled back a step. I don’t think I’d ever seen anyone look so pale. Amy and Shelley were all over him, making him sit on the stepstool while they ascertained that his head wasn’t bleeding. They barraged him with questions. Did he feel faint? Was he having chest pains? He kept shaking his head no, unable, or unwilling, to speak.
The rest of us looked at one another, and at the opening in the bricks, eerily illuminated now by the work light Ty had dropped inside. Then we looked at one another again.
Sexy Beast, picking up on the collective mood, whined something that sounded an awful lot like, Now would be a good time to run away from this scary place and never look back.
I made an impulsive decision, based on my assumption that whatever was behind that wall was less likely to freak me out than these other folks. I mean, think about it. I make my living doing stuff that would freak out the average person. It’s how I keep the lights on and pay for Sexy Beast’s Vienna sausages.
And really, how bad could it be?
“Would you take him for a minute?” I handed SB to a wide-eyed Cherry Tagliaferro, who clutched him to her like a life preserver.
Without giving myself time to reconsider, I stuck my head into the musty space and looked around. There wasn’t much to see at first, just a small, cobwebby room constructed of the same antiquated brickwork as the rest of the house.
Then I looked down.
A human skeleton lay curled on its side on the dirt floor, facing the wall we’d just breached. The bones of its right hand rested near a metal cup, which appeared to be pewter. A large bowl of the same material sat in a corner. Most disconcertingly—
What’s that? Yes, I know this is already disconcerting enough, but it gets better. By which I mean worse. If I may continue?
Most disconcertingly, there was a significant depression in the dirt floor at the edge of the wall. The pewter cup lay in that depression. This poor fellow had been trying to dig himself out of his crypt.
He’d been walled up alive.
How did I know it was a he? The skeleton appeared complete, with one notable exception. In lieu of lower leg and foot bones on his left side, there was a carved wooden peg leg, complete with a rounded socket at the top for the stump. I saw no sign of a crutch, but what use did Percival Ruskin have for one at that point, anyway? His tomb was the size of your average powder room.
Well, of course it had to be Percy. Do the math.
“Jane?” It was Shelley. “What do you see?”
The work light had bounced off Percy’s cranium and rolled away, a bit too far for me to reach. I glanced behind me and caught the eye of Jankovic Number One. “Can you make sure I don’t tumble inside?”
“No problem, ma’am. I got you.” He positioned himself right up against me and got a good grip on my hips as I wriggled half my body through the opening. By some miracle, I managed not to giggle again, which, let’s face it, would have been a tasteless thing to do as I reached across the mortal remains of poor Percy to curl my fingers through the work light’s cage.
“Okay,” I said, and Jankovic hauled me back, and this time I giggled just a little bit.
Woody and the beauteous Jankovics craned their necks for a glimpse inside the space, now that a mere female had taken a good long gander and hadn’t expired of fright, but the dark interior revealed nothing. I held on to the work light for the time being.
Ty came to his feet, brushing off his daughter and Shelley as they continued to fuss over him. “I’m fine, I was just a little... surprised.” He looked at me then, his blue-gray eyes haunted. “Poor devil.”
I nodded in grim agreement.
“What...” Amy swallowed hard. “What’s in there, Jane?”
I took a deep breath and addressed the group. “I don’t suppose anyone believed Sybille Collingwood back in 1668 when she claimed Percival Ruskin ran off. Most folks probably thought he ended up in a shallow grave or the nearest lake. In fact, he never left The Gabbling Goose.”
It took a moment, then Shelley stifled a gasp with her hand. Her husband put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. Cherry and Alex gaped at each other as my meaning sunk in.
Jankovic Number One said, “Not sure who this Percival guy is, but do you want us to finish demolishing the wall, Mr. Collingwood?”
“Why don’t you hold off for the time being,” Ty said.
Just then, from the farthest reaches of the house, came three hollow, metallic sounds.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
Shelley brightened. “It’s Percy! He’s thanking us for freeing his spirit.”
I didn’t remind her that she held a low opinion of Percy and that, according to her, his spirit was just waiting for an opportunity to exact vengeance on the Collingwoods. Nor did I point out that Percy’s preferred method of communication sounded suspiciously like the banging of air in geriatric plumbing.
Then I recalled her explanation for how Percy produced those metallic sounds. He banged his pewter cup on the punch bowl. And what two items had accompanied him in death?
I admit it. I shivered.
Now that I’d prepared the others for the sight, I handed the work light to the Jankovics and the Tagliaferros, who took turns exclaiming over our grisly find.
Ty said, “I guess we have to report this.”
I was already tapping my cell phone. When Detective Cookie Kaplan answered, I said, “Déjà vu, Cookie. There’s a dead body at The Gabbling Goose.”