by Traci Wilton
“The lights were out for about three minutes. It wasn’t completely dark because there were candles on most of the tables, and the bright costumes showed where everyone stood. We had the one exit blocked with tables to stop the flow of people coming in and out of the ballroom.”
Kevin rubbed his smooth-shaven chin. “Alaric was there, and then poof, he was gone. Where did he go?”
“It was just a long enough period of time that he could have walked out on his own,” Charlene surmised. “Maybe a quick change of costume? No magic needed at all, just a distraction to make people think he’d disappeared.”
“But he never reappeared.” Kevin crossed his arms.
“Exactly.” She strode around the room, her instincts drawing her toward where the photo booth had been. She brought Dr. Patrick Steel’s book from her purse. “The author of this book mentions secret passageways all over town from the 1800s.”
“The Hawthorne wasn’t built until 1925. Long after the original tunnels were made.”
“It was the Franklin Building before that.”
“Which burned down numerous times.” Kevin lifted a brow at her. “My bartender friend said people have complained about the fire smell coming from the basement, but when they check? No fires.”
She shivered. “Phantom flames?”
“Cute. I might use that in one of my tours.”
“Kevin! Help me focus, please—where could Alaric have gone?”
They walked along the windows. “Do they open?”
The windows they tried didn’t budge. The last one Charlene attempted, near the photo booth, did—not fully. If a man was very skinny and could contort his body into a U-shape, he might be able to slip through.
Kevin narrowed his eyes. “It would have been crowded, chaotic, people focused on where Alaric was standing. It might have been easy for him to slip away, but probably not through that window.”
“He had help.” Charlene studied the floorboards. A scrape of wood showed. Beneath the carpet runner was a square edge. Charlene pried it up; the exposed carpet revealed a wood square.
“A trapdoor,” Kevin said with a grin.
CHAPTER 22
Charlene just knew this had to be the escape route! “What’s directly below here?”
“The library, like I told you,” Kevin said. “Nothing mysterious about that.”
“Let’s go see.”
“Okay.” They walked down the stairs and Kevin smacked his palm to his forehead. “Oh. There’s also the men’s room.”
“The Franklin Building, all versions, would have had a basement too.” Charlene looked around the space, getting a chill.
“This place feels older than just a hundred years.”
“The Salem Marine Society is still housed on the top floor of the Hawthorne. This space was meant to be a retirement home for sailors—and that was in the late 1700s, early eighteens.”
Kevin knocked on the men’s room door but nobody answered. He gestured for her to join him and they both entered.
She pointed to the ceiling and a square cut out above the farthest stall.
“Alaric could have come down through here, changed into different clothes, and walked out.”
“What was he wearing when he washed ashore?”
“He was naked.”
Kevin’s eyes narrowed. “Less DNA to transfer if the clothes are gone. Has Sam told you the time of death?”
“No. You know how that goes. The stick was a prop, with type O blood on it. I don’t think it made the hole in Alaric’s chest—it was the width of a baseball. There would have been blood around the floor then.”
“You’re right. Alaric wasn’t killed upstairs. It’s likely the hole in his chest was done later.”
“To prove that Alaric, a supposed vampire, was actually human and dead?” That sounded like a point Orpheus might have made. Unless Asher decided to also make sure that Alaric was dead in the vampire sense and then been sorely disappointed.
Kevin jumped up onto the toilet seat and opened the door. A rope ladder descended and Kevin climbed it as agile as a monkey.
“What is it?”
“Just a crawl space for ventilation.” Kevin wiggled halfway in, legs dangling. “He might not have come out here at all. This leads under the whole floor, but I can see a muted light. Natural. Probably the street.”
“Let’s go see.” Charlene helped Kevin get down, gently tugging on his calves until his boots could reach the toilet seat.
“These are sort of like tunnels.” He brushed off the dirt from his shirt and jeans.
“Thanks for doing that,” she said with a shrug. “I never would have thought to look inside there. Alaric had to have been very fit.”
He led the way upstairs to the lobby and they exited from the front door, going around the building to the side where they had the best view of the Commons.
Charlene pulled out Patrick’s book again.
“What’s that?”
“Dr. Steel’s book. This has the underground history for Salem—smuggling, rum, secrets.”
Kevin studied the area around the back of the hotel and pointed to a grate. “That’s where the light is coming from.”
He dropped down to inspect the metal.
Excitement had Charlene’s stomach jumping. “Did he get out that way?”
“Nope. This is welded on—and hasn’t been tampered with in fifty years probably.” He stood and brushed his hands together. “Sorry, Charlene. It was a good idea.”
“Is this the only one?”
Kevin blew out a breath. “Let’s check it out.”
After going around the whole block, they came across a basement access door. “Could this be it?” Charlene asked.
Kevin stopped and studied the entrance. “I don’t know.”
“Where did he go? How was he killed and where? His body somehow got from here”—she pointed to the brick hotel—“to the Derby Wharf.” She put her hand in her jacket pocket. “Nobody saw him leave.”
Kevin disappeared down the steep stairs and Charlene peered over the edge. He twisted the metal knob on the door.
It opened. “Bingo.”
Charlene followed him as he held the door open. “What is this?”
There were crates and old hotel furniture. “Storage, looks like,” Kevin said.
Charlene used her cell phone for light until they found a switch. Two sets of boot prints were near the door. She carefully avoided them and walked across the cement basement to the main interior door. She opened that and it led to a back room like a forgotten office and more storage—this time of books.
“The library.”
“Yeah,” Kevin said. “Seems he came out this way—did he have help, or are the boot marks his from multiple visits?”
“Wish I had the answer. I did see Asher in the ballroom the whole night so I can’t imagine it was him. Elisabeta is petite; she could easily slip down here. Orpheus had been wearing boots, but he’s a large man. Brandy and I saw a pair of his boots in his hotel room. They had dirt on them.”
“Dare I ask why the two of you were in his room?”
“Another story for another day.” She would keep Sam’s confidence.
Kevin shone his phone flashlight into the shadows. “We should get out of here and talk in the sunshine.”
She looked around the dim space. “I’ll tell Sam about this entrance when I see him after we finish our tour.”
“We don’t know for sure if this is anything—it’s a possible route for Alaric to escape. Not how he ended up by the wharf with a hole in his chest.”
“I know. I’d thought that maybe there would be tunnels from here to the water. Like in the old days, but Patrick said that they’d been filled in.”
“There was one here, though?”
“Yes. He’s going to show me a place in the street that’s been cemented over where they used to bring in supplies for the Franklin Building.”
“Is it in your book?”
“Let’s skedaddle. It’s giving me the creeps.” They ascended the stairs together.
On the sidewalk she shook a few cobwebs from her hair. “I don’t like spiders.”
Kevin thumbed through the pages with interest as she dusted herself off. “Can’t believe I haven’t read this before. It’s pretty thorough.”
“After reading this, I’d like to get back to the Peabody Essex Museum. I had no idea that so many treasures were stored there from Salem’s glory days.” She sneezed at the remaining dust clinging to her clothes.
“Bless you. I’ve been there a million times and they’re always changing things up.”
“You should meet Patrick; you’d like him. He was a professor for thirty years and is very pro-Salem. I can see him as a militiaman or something back in the day, patrolling the Commons against the Redcoats.”
They exchanged smiles. “I’d like that.”
“You’re welcome to come on the tour with me next Tuesday.”
“What time?”
“Don’t know yet—he’s going to call me.”
Kevin nodded. Standing on the corner, they faced the Commons, the hotel at their back. “Let’s imagine that Alaric left the ball on his own two feet.”
“It seems likely,” Charlene said. “He would go to his house nearby where Serenity would do the spell, with Elisabeta there to assist in the transfusion. Elisabeta was asked to wait to be immortal until after Alaric and Serenity proved it possible. Asher was also sidelined. Orpheus was not invited to the party, period.”
“Where is his house?”
“He rented one of the historic homes across the park from here. Two chimneys—only one fireplace that I saw.”
Kevin shaded his eyes as the sun broke from behind a cloud. “What’s that mean?”
“It’s supposed to indicate that the house or business had a tunnel access, connected to another house or business.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. Well, I don’t know if it’s true, but that’s what the book says. Sounds silly, but it was important for the men and women not to ruin their clothes and protect their health during inclement weather. Tunnels were created as roads to connect homes of family or friends, and businesses.”
“I feel like I need to pay you for the tour.”
Charlene laughed at the role reversal. “My theory about Alaric going from the Hawthorne to his home to the wharf has holes in it. Which is why I need you. What would be the most direct route for someone to move a dead body?”
“You’re assuming he would have been killed here, which might not be true.”
She crossed her arms and scanned the area around them. Gorgeous elm trees, bluish-gray sky, lovely historic buildings, and so much scandal.
“He wasn’t at home when Serenity and Elisabeta were there fifteen minutes later. It seems logical to me that he just plain never made it.”
Charlene reached for the book and put it in her purse as the weather started to spit and drizzle. “Traveling underground made sense in a way. Folks spent a fortune on their clothes and fabrics. Only the rich merchants would have the money, not the majority.”
Kevin hunched his shoulders, scooting back under the protective awning of the hotel. “A warren of paths beneath the city. Most are filled in or blocked off due to the torrential rains that can cause flooding. It puts a lot of pressure on the old bricks and stones.”
“It would be a nightmare if one collapsed and trapped someone.”
“For sure, that’s why they are more patrolled now. It’s trespassing if you’re caught on private property and that thousand-dollar fine is no joke.”
“Patrick said it’s okay to follow the paths aboveground. Where is the pedestrian mall from here?” Charlene knew the area but not the direct route. It was an upscale part of the city that included the Peabody Museum and blocks of quaint shops where no vehicles were allowed.
Kevin pointed to his left. “Down there about a mile.”
“And the wharf?”
He gestured to his right. “Same distance—well, maybe just over a mile.”
“Not so far to walk, but not so easy to carry a body and have no one notice. Not even on Halloween night.” Charlene turned toward Alaric’s rental house. “I’m hoping to see what’s in the basement. Asher and Celeste were guests of mine until Celeste checked out. I saw them down there.”
“Uh, will they be friendly?”
“Probably not.” She shivered as she recalled their last meeting at the Pirate’s Cove. “Alaric’s house has two chimneys. A basement. It could be connected to the tunnels.”
“That would be very cool—but then what?” He hunched into his jacket.
She swallowed and touched her throat. “Well, the tunnels, or just one, might lead to the wharf.”
“I see what you’re getting at.”
“Either way, it would be easier to transport a dead body underground than carrying it through the streets.”
“Agreed. If the connection can be made. What else do you know about this underground?”
“Just what I read.” She patted her purse. “The tunnels were made from the wharves to the homes and businesses across Derby. Tons of cargo was taken off the ships and brought to the city—for sale or storage or personal use.”
“Most of the wharves were taken apart,” Kevin said.
“Except for four—one of them being Derby Wharf—where Alaric’s body was found.” Excitement coursed through her as they pieced things together.
Kevin pulled out his cell phone from his back jeans pocket. “Let me call my buddy and ask him about it. I wish that Patrick guy was here to explain this in better detail.”
“Tuesday seems like forever.” Charlene chuckled at her own impatience. “I think Asher and Elisabeta are dangerous, between the drugs, blood, and vampire scene. I’m afraid Celeste is being drawn into their crazy world.” She gave Kevin a nod. “You call your friend, and I’ll phone Patrick to see if he can answer that question specifically. Do any of the houses around the Commons connect to the wharves?”
Charlene’s phone rang before she could dial out. She didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”
“It’s Dru Ormand.” The young man spoke fast. “Meet me at the Lobster Shack, and I can tell you what I saw inside that monster’s house. Now or forget it.”
“All right! Can I bring Kevin Hughes?”
“Come alone or no deal.” Dru hung up.
Charlene whirled to Kevin in surprise, knowing she had to speak with Dru. “I have to go—will you take a rain check for lunch?”
“Sure.” Kevin didn’t question her further, having heard her part of the conversation. “You safe?”
“Yes. Meeting Dru, but he’s being secretive.” She shrugged. “Call me after you speak to your friend? I’ll let you know what Patrick says when I get ahold of him. He might not be around this weekend though.”
“You got it. Want me to make an anonymous phone call to the station about the Hawthorne Hotel open basement door?”
She grinned. “I would owe you a full steak and lobster dinner at Turner’s. You and Amy.”
“Deal!” Kevin waved and walked toward the bandstand in the park, phone in hand.
Charlene hurried to the Lobster Shack three blocks away. Would Serenity be there too?
When Charlene arrived at the quaint restaurant with big booth seating, she searched for Dru’s dark hair, but didn’t see him.
“Hey,” a redhead whispered to her right.
She turned toward a wide-eyed young man in a suit jacket and slacks. His dark hair had been dyed auburn and didn’t match the scruff at his jaw. His hand quivered as he gestured her to the booth and the seat across from him.
Why the disguise? Was he that scared of being arrested? “You might not remember me. I’m Charlene.”
He didn’t chitchat but launched his complaint. “I need your help so I can
get back to work. The cops want to see me, but I almost got arrested when I volunteered some information at the department. Figured they’d want to know what I saw in Alaric’s house.”
She shrugged out of her jacket. “I know I sure do. You were at the station Saturday night?”
“Yep. When it seemed like the cops wanted to put me in a cell for murder, I asked to use the restroom and dipped out the side door.” Dru pulled at his chin. “I interned at the Peabody for three months before I got hired in the security department. High level. My record needs to stay squeaky-clean.”
“You broke into Alaric’s house, though.”
“Basement door was unlocked and he had drugs everywhere. Creepier than that, he had a refrigerator stocked with blood, labeled, like for a hospital.”
He’d told Stephanos about the blood the night of the ball. Drugs probably weren’t that big of a shock these days. Dru drummed his fingers on the table in a nervous rat-a-tat-tat.
“Where have you been? I tried to call you.” She imagined him in a dark apartment with the lights on low. “Your place?”
“God, no. I must’ve slept through the cops knocking on my door Saturday morning but they left a card. I had no idea Alaric was dead. Serenity left a message for me to hide out so I’ve been laying low at my grandma’s house.” He kept on in a rush. “She passed away six months ago. Serenity’s been bringing me food and stuff. I can’t believe that freak was going to kill her.”
“And Serenity was supposed to kill Alaric.” Charlene studied Dru’s earnest face.
“She wouldn’t have done it. Not even if he drugged her, like you said he might have. I believe it. I saw pipes and powder, syringes.” His voice broke. “She’s a good person. I know she wouldn’t have gone through with it. Serenity doesn’t do recreational high.”
“Serenity’s shared everything?”
“Yeah. We’ve been doing a lot of talking, just the two of us. I would go to jail for her, if it helped. She says it won’t.”
“Did you kill Alaric?”
“No.” Dru held her gaze with no sign of nerves.
“I’m trying to keep you both out of jail. Serenity doesn’t know where she went until she remembers coming to around three in the morning. At her house.”
