Emory and Jeff stood in the lower-level hallway before a door that was different from the others they’d encountered at Geisterhaus. The warm chestnut surface held a speakeasy window with an iron grill. Emory turned the bronze lever doorknob and pushed it open. He felt a slight change in pressure and drop in temperature as he stepped inside the wine cellar. He flipped on the light switch. “I feel like we just walked into one of your dreams.”
“Uh-huh,” Jeff replied.
Emory’s eyes wandered the room, starting at the iron chandelier hanging from the white batten ceiling above the thick chestnut table with six chairs and moving to the more than one hundred wine racks attached to walls of white stone tile that continued across the floor. “Hey, I have an idea. We could convert the new basement space at the office into a wine cellar. You’d love that.”
“Would I?” asked Jeff.
“I know how much you love wine.”
“Do I?” Jeff ran his hand over some of the bottles. “Or is that just something I said?”
Emory was about to respond when a painting at the far end of the room caught his attention. “Holy crap!” As he approached it, he saw an emaciated man in a nineteenth-century American military uniform on a dirt trail surrounded by cedar trees. He had a long, bleak face with vacant eyes and a red-dripping hole where his heart should have been. Hiding in the shadows was a red coyote with a heart in his mouth. “It’s Hugo Hickory.” Emory pointed to an object beside the coyote that was painted red, blue, white and black. “There’s Waya’ha’s blanket in the four sacred colors. I never knew there was a painting of the story.”
Jeff hummed with disinterest and a passing glance at the painting.
“Okay. Well, I think it’s cool.” Emory had hoped for more than a tepid response at his discovery, but he shrugged it off and snapped a few pictures with his phone. “Do you see anything else of interest here or any sign of the Pangram Box?”
Jeff crouched to look under the table. “No, but you can’t take my word for it.”
Emory sighed and shook his head. “Can’t we put our feelings aside and be professional about this?”
Jeff gave the room a final scan. “I’m sorry, Mr. Spock, but that’s an area in which I don’t excel. That and trustworthiness.”
“Let’s move on.” Emory left the cellar with Jeff and continued down the hall to the next door, which stood ajar. “Bathroom. I didn’t see bathrooms in Juniper’s or Tommy’s rooms. They must’ve shared this one.”
“How communal.” Jeff headed to the next door. “Ah, here we have your basic little supply closet.”
Emory walked into the room past his partner. “I can’t believe this.”
“Right? She has her own 7-Eleven right here.”
Emory walked along seven aisles between shelves stocked with food and other supplies. “This is bigger than my apartment.”
“Apparently, Blair Geister did not like to run out of things.” Jeff grabbed a bag from one of the shelves. “Veggie chips. I’ll try them.” He ripped open the bag and ate a chip. “Not bad.”
Emory patted a stack of sheets on a shelf devoted to bedding. “I could’ve used these last night.” Something leaned against the wall caught his attention. “Blair’s mattress.” Not seeing the silhouette stain, he tilted it away from the wall to check the other side. “There’s the stain.”
“Did you think it disappeared?”
“Just making sure it’s the right mattress.” Emory reached for the bag of veggie chips. “Can I try one?”
Jeff blocked the bag with his body. “After touching that mattress? No, you need to wash your hands first.”
“I barely touched it.”
“You know where the bathroom is.”
“Fine.” Emory left the supply closet and washed his hands in the bathroom. He met his partner outside the only other room on the lower level they had yet to explore. Jeff extended the bag of chips, but Emory didn’t take one. “I changed my mind.” Instead, Emory reached for the knob, opening the door to darkness. He ran his hand along the wall until he felt the dimmer switch to turn on the overhead lights. “Oh, you’re going to like this.”
Jeff stepped in front of him onto a narrow walkway above a set of stairs, and his mouth gaped open as he took in the massive room.
Black quilted padding covered the ceiling and walls of the large rectangular space, except for the far wall, which held a screen at least nine-feet high and sixteen-feet wide. The room had four rows of seats with five reclining chairs in the front, with each subsequent row having an additional chair from the row before it.
Jeff’s demeanor seemed to tick up a degree at the sight. He said, almost to himself, “This is what we should do with the office basement. A movie theatre.”
“I don’t think the ceiling in our basement is high enough.”
“We could lower the floor like Blair Geister did with this room.”
Emory pointed to a black door at the other end of the walkway. “Where does that door lead?”
“Probably the projection room.”
Emory opened the door and found a digital projector, sound equipment and a computer monitor for selecting movies. “You’re right.”
Jeff descended the eight steps to the inclined, red-carpeted floor and stepped into the aisle at the left of the chairs. “We have to watch a movie here.” He tilted his chin toward a muted red Exit sign above a door to the right of the screen. “Look, it even has an emergency exit. What row are you?”
Emory followed him down the stairs. “What do you mean?”
“When you go to a movie, where do you sit? I like to sit as close to the front as possible.” He hurried to the front row and plopped down in the middle chair.
“I’m more of middle-row guy.” Emory took the seat next to his partner. “This is too close for me. I don’t want to have to look up to see a movie.”
“You have to recline the chair.” Jeff pressed a button on his chair and it almost flattened. “See. Now I just look straight ahead to see what’s playing on the screen.”
“This is incredible!” Emory heard from behind. He turned around to see Virginia descending the stairs. “It must be great to have all the money in the world.”
Jeff waved to the chair on his right. “Sit with us. Did you talk to the neighbor? What’s his name again?”
Virginia joined them in the front row and reclined her chair. “Edgar Strand. Yes, and now I know why Juniper is so worried that her former boss’ ghost is out to get her. For all the good Blair Geister did, she was also very vindictive.”
Emory kept his chair upright so he could face his partners. “How so?”
“Edgar Strand initially sued her about the boathouse, claiming it impeded common use of the river. Even though Blair won the suit, she got back at him by putting those big head statues along the fence and some really grotesque gargoyles on the roof, facing right into his office windows.”
Jeff cupped his hands behind his head. “Do you think Edgar was angry enough to kill her?”
“That’d be a definite yes.” Virginia returned her chair to upright. “It’s getting late. I’m going to throw something together for dinner.”
As she passed in front of him, Emory said, “I can help with the cooking.”
“That’s okay.” Virginia put out her hands like she was picking up vibes. “I sense you two have something to work out. Whatever it is, don’t bring it to the dinner table.”
Once Virginia left, Jeff popped out of his chair and glanced around the room. “Let’s move on.”
Emory sighed in relief and stood before his partner. “Good. I really am sorry.”
“I meant to the next floor.”
“Oh. I think there are three or four rooms on the other two levels we haven’t seen yet, including Blair’s bedroom.”
“We can forget about that one until Eden decides to leave the house.”
Emory headed for the stairs. “I haven’t seen her leave the house yet. Doesn’t she work?”
“Bereavement leave, I’d imagine.”
The PIs left the theatre and ascended the front stairs to the main level hallway. Emory tried the first door on the right, across from the locutorium, and found it to be a bathroom. Jeff opened the door a few feet away on the other side. “Nice!”
“What is it?”
“A library.”
Emory followed Jeff inside to see a spectacular room with expansive, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves recessed into each rust-colored wall. The shelves were full of books, the highest ones accessible via a sliding ladder attached to a rail that circled the top of the room. On the wall opposite the door was a large picture window overlooking the evening woods east of the driveway. The room was divided into three distinct reading areas, distinguished by rugs and furniture tone. Built into the wall behind one reading area was a clock four feet in diameter with independent silver numbers adhered between two concentric circles around spike-shaped hour and minute hands.
As they walked around the room, Jeff called attention to the clock. “That’s interesting.”
“Are these walls metal?” Emory felt the one surrounding the window. “They look rusted.”
Jeff ran his palm along the wall. “I’ve seen this treatment before at the house of one of my parents’ friends. You paint the walls with a liquid metal primer and then spray it with an activating solution that gives it the look of rusted metal. It’s covered with a sealant to keep it from rubbing off.” He jumped onto the ladder and pushed off the floor with his foot, riding the ladder down the wall and halfway down the adjacent one.
“You’re going to break something.”
Jeff jumped off the ladder and held his hand out to Emory. “Let me see your license.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You act too old to be twenty-three. I think you lied to me.”
Emory rolled his eyes, jumped on the ladder and rode it quarter of the wall’s length before jumping off again. “Happy?”
“Happier.” Jeff headed for the door. “Are we done with this floor?”
Hearing low-pitched chimes, Emory turned his head to follow the sound back to the wall clock, which read two minutes past eight. “That clock’s strikes are a little off.” He returned his attention to Jeff. “We passed by a room across the hall, next to the locutorium, when we first came here. I think it’s a living room or a den.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Living rooms are more for entertaining. Dens are more personal. Family-centric. Less formal.”
Jeff scoffed. “That’s like distinguishing between a couch and a sofa.”
“There are differences with those too.” Emory walked across the hall and opened the door to a wood-paneled room with a stone fireplace, burgundy fainting couch and white area rug under two houndstooth sofas facing an oversized coffee table. A lacquered cherry secretary desk with hand-painted floral designs and matching chair stood before the far wall, a few feet from the only window.
Jeff waved his hands around the room. “Is this a living room or den?”
Emory noticed the framed vacation pictures hung on the lone wall with white and periwinkle fabric in place of wood paneling. “Den.”
While Emory looked around the room for any sign of the Pangram Box, Jeff took a seat. “Couch or sofa?”
Emory noticed the delicate fabric and sturdy back. “Sofa.”
Jeff laughed at him. “You’re just making this crap up, aren’t you?”
“I’m totally serious.” Emory inspected the desk.
“You’re a mountain boy. Why on Earth would you possibly know these fancy nuances?”
Emory opened each drawer. “Completing TBI reports. I wanted to be as accurate as possible, so I learned.”
Lying on the sofa, Jeff pointed to a black spot about the circumference of a basketball on the ceiling near the window. “Is that water damage?”
Emory looked up at the spot, glimpsing the rising gibbous moon in the window. “I’m not sure. It looks like it.”
Jeff pushed up from the sofa and joined his partner for a closer look. He tapped the floor with his toe. “You’re stepping in it.”
Emory jumped back to see a similar dark spot on the white hardwood floor. “It went all the way through.” He stooped to feel it. “It’s not even a little wet, but it has to be relatively new. From what we’ve heard of Blair Geister—”
Jeff finished his thought. “She would’ve insisted Tommy fix it right away. Is there a bathroom above here?”
“I think it’s about where the master bath would be.”
Jeff fixed his gaze on the ceiling. “What was Eden doing in there?”
Emory caught a light in the corner of his eye – something moving on the other side of the window. “Did you see that?”
“See what?”
“I think someone walked by the window.”
The PIs ran to the locutorium to look out the room’s many French doors. Jeff opened his mouth but took seconds to speak. “What the hell…”
Emory shook his head. “I have no idea.”
Gathering on the lawn were no less than two dozen people in dark, hooded cloaks carrying lanterns.
Virginia appeared behind her partners. “I think they’re witches.”
Emory asked, “What are they doing here?”
Jeff opened one of the French doors. “Let’s find out.”
The PIs piled onto the walkway by the pool, but Virginia stopped them from proceeding. “Wait. It looks like they’re about to do something.”
The witches began to chant as they fell into formation. Three by three, they circled around an imaginary axis like spokes in a wheel. Their movements synchronized into a dance as their chanting turned to song. The ritual seemed to summon a swarm of lightning bugs, adding flares to the witches’ lantern lights.
Jeff muttered, “It’s beautiful.”
The dancers twirled, stretching their arms to the moon as if it were within reach.
Emory found himself mesmerized until he heard Virginia shout, “There’s the light!”
Jeff side-eyed her. “Uh, there are lots of them.”
“No.” Virginia pointed toward the boathouse. “In the river!”
Emory could see it now – a glow of light under the water’s surface.
Jeff took off running. “Come on!”
The three investigators ran around the witches and darted toward the water. Once they reached the riverbank, Virginia stopped and pulled out her phone. “I’ll stay here and record it.”
Her partners slowed their pace as they stepped onto the creaking slats of the pier. Emory could see the ball of light still under the boathouse, near where it connected to the six-foot pier. Jeff placed a hand on the boathouse door and crouched to look over the edge of the pier.
The light disappeared.
Jeff looked up at his partner. “What the hell was that?”