Red Rum: A Rosie Casket Mystery

by R M Wild

  Neither of us had told Eldritch that it was so cheap because Lori had died after using poisoned lipstick and no one else wanted to rent it.

  Sometimes, what you don’t know, can’t hurt you. Other times, what you don’t know can be deadly. Which, hopefully, wouldn’t be the result of this particular excursion.

  We walked past the scaffolding on the keeper’s house and crossed into the woods on the far side of the lighthouse and climbed over giant rocks and down a slight embankment. The last time I had been here with Eldritch, it had been at night, and I couldn’t remember the exact location.

  It took me a few minutes of poking the ground with my foot to find it.

  “Here it is.”

  “That’s a snake hole,” Mettle said.

  “You have to move the rock.”

  Effortlessly, he slid the large rock aside. Underneath, was a hole not much bigger than my waist. No jokes, please.

  “Now it’s a fat snake hole,” Mettle said. “I don’t think I can fit my massive shoulders through that. What if I get stuck?”

  “If you stay up here and wait, go back to the keeper’s house. I heard they were installing a tampon dispenser.”

  “Very funny,” he said. “I’ll take my chances down the hole.”

  I held out both palms. “Lower me down.”

  He took my right hand.

  I waved my left. “I said both palms.”

  “I need to hold the flashlight.”

  “Pass it down afterward. It’s a short drop.”

  “What do you weigh? A buck twenty-five? I can curl that in my sleep.”

  “Eldritch used both hands.”

  “And he’s like ninety-five years old,” Mettle said. “Trust me. I got you. With my pinky.”

  He grabbed my wrist and I grabbed his and he squatted and lowered me down into the hole. He didn’t grunt, didn’t strain, not like Eldritch, and it felt like I was being slowly lowered by a machine. I would never give him the satisfaction of knowing how impressed I was and was glad my grin disappeared in the darkness.

  “Okay, let go,” I said.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  He let go and I dropped down the last few feet. I landed well and grabbed the rock wall to steady myself.

  “I’m coming down,” he announced.

  I looked up at the mouth of the gray hole above and then stepped out of the way. Mettle dangled his feet, squeezed his chest together, wiggled through, and landed on the rocks beside me and brushed off his shoulders.

  “Take it,” he said and handed me the flashlight.

  I turned it on. In the yellow beam, Mettle stood there and massaged his chest muscles.

  “I told you to use both hands.”

  “It’s not that,” he said. “I haven’t been able to touch my elbows together since junior high school.”

  I gagged. “Spare me.”

  “I’m totally serious.”

  I rolled my eyes in the dark. “Yes, you are incredibly buff, Mr. Universe. Thank you for wooing my ears with that humble brag.”

  I shined the beam ahead and we hiked down the embankment, our feet never quite reaching the circle of light stretching ahead of us. The rocks were slick and shiny and treacherous and we stepped carefully and dragged our hands along the cavern walls for support as we descended.

  The lower we went, the colder it got. The dripping got louder and louder as if we had stepped into a massive public restroom full of leaky faucets. I shivered, but more from the memories of the last time I had been down here than from the cold.

  Only a few yards ahead, in the yellow light and the fang-like shadows cast by the stalactites, Dimitri had taped me up and left me for dead. I had to swim my way out, nearly drowning. I remembered my guardian caller, the still unidentified person who had called me incessantly before the harbor water turned my phone into a brick.

  I rubbed my arms to try to get rid of the goosebumps. “Did you bring your gun?”

  “I’m suspended, remember?” Mettle said, his voice echoing in the passage. “But don’t worry, I’ve got a Leatherman on my key chain.”

  “What’s a Leatherman?”

  “It’s like a Swiss Army knife, but seven times manlier.”

  We stopped at the juncture between the passageways. Ahead, each tunnel loomed dark and unknown, like we had crawled inside a giant glove.

  “Somewhere around here is where I found Chrissy’s bracelet,” I said.

  “Which tunnel do we take?”

  I remembered my poor decision when I was bound and hopping. “Not the left, that’s for sure. The other two, I have no idea.”

  “After you,” Mettle said.

  “You know, there are some times when letting the woman go last is the gentlemanly thing to do.”

  “This was your idea,” Mettle said. He suddenly jumped back and grabbed my arm. “Whoa!”

  “What?”

  “I thought I saw the wall move.”

  “Probably a snake,” I said.

  “I hate snakes. They only belong in a zoo or in a pair of boxers. Sometimes tightie-whities, but it depends on which sport you’re playing.”

  “Gross.”

  He exhaled slowly. “There are currently no poisonous snakes in Maine, but the last person to be bitten was a state trooper.”

  I pinched his bicep. “Tasty meat.”

  “I say we go in the middle.”

  “To the right it is,” I said. I took the lead and followed the tunnel deep into the side of the cliff. I had lost sense of which direction we were going and it was impossible to know if we were moving toward the harbor, away from it, or parallel to it.

  Soon the dripping stopped and the rocks lost their luster in our circle of yellow light. We kept walking and walking. After a bit, my ankles ached from navigating the jagged floor and I was pretty sure the trek had been longer than the distance between my inn and the lighthouse.

  I kept the flashlight trained ahead like I had seen the cops do on TV. “My arm’s getting tired.”

  “You’re holding it wrong,” he said. “Reverse your grip.”

  “That’s not how they do it on TV.”

  “They’re posers,” he said.

  “How good are these batteries?”

  “I changed them last month,” Mettle said. “It’s protocol. Like making sure your gun is always loaded.”

  We walked farther. And farther. We went so far, I thought the cave was going to start getting warmer as we approached the center of the earth.

  “Jules Verne has got nothing on us,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “Never mind.”

  It kept getting colder.

  “Every step we take forward, we’re gonna have to take in the other direction,” Mettle said. “I don’t think I’ve ever used the flashlight for this long. If those batteries die on us, we’re totally screwed.”

  But I pressed ahead. “It’s an illusion,” I said, trying to convince myself. “The trip out always seems longer than the trip back.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  Ahead, my light landed on something hairy, the rocks awash in red.

  I put my arm out to stop him. “Oh my God. Look.”

  15

  The passageway came to an abrupt end. At my foot, was a tiny, glassy puddle in the vague shape of a skull. As my flashlight passed over it, a drip from the ceiling shattered my reflection.

  “Dead end,” Mettle said.

  I shivered, a cool draft coming from nowhere. I stepped over the puddle and crossed into a small room. The space, no larger than my foyer, had walls so smooth they looked man-made, as if it were an underground springhouse. Stacked to the ceiling were barrels, all aged and smashed, the hoops deeply pitted with rust, the staves splintered. The wood, having been soaked by the seeping rains, was all rotted and hairy and stained with red.

  “Treasure,” I whispered.

  “One man’s treasure is another man’s trash,” Mettle said. He stoop
ed beside one of the barrels and put a finger to the stain.

  “Are you crazy? Don’t touch that,” I said.

  He ignored me and touched the red and then touched his finger to his tongue. “It’s not blood, Casket. It’s rum.”

  “Rum?”

  He wiggled a barrel aside and took the flashlight and trained it behind the barrels. It illuminated stacks of wooden crates. The wood was less hairy than the barrels, like they had all undergone a recent shave, and they were marked with stamps that said, “Deliver to Danvers State Hospital.”

  “That’s the abandoned psychiatric hospital in Massachusetts,” I said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Obviously you don’t watch any horror movies.”

  Mettle yanked the lid off one of the crates. It was packed with shredded paper. He reached in and pulled out a brand new bottle and shined the light on it.

  The bearded skill grinned back.

  “This is Hardgrave’s stash,” I said. “He must have hid it before you could confiscate it all.”

  “There’s way more here than we got,” he said. “Wait ’till the boys find out.”

  “You’re not telling anyone about this.”

  “This is illegal. He hid it from the raid.”

  “He must have known you were coming,” I said. I grabbed the flashlight and shined it on a sliver of twisted tape attached to the pitted curve of one of the barrels. “How much do you want to bet that piece of tape is biodegradable?”

  Mettle peeled it off and sniffed it. “It smells like hemp.”

  “That’s the same tape that Dimitri used to tie me up. I’ll never forget that smell. He must have been down here.”

  “You think he alerted Hardgrave?”

  “I don’t know, but I bet he left it behind thinking it wouldn’t leave a trace. But this room is cooler than the rest of the cave. It’s the perfect temperature for storing the rum, long term.”

  Mettle tucked a bottle of rum under his arm.

  I shined the light straight in his eyes. “Don’t you dare. Put it back.”

  “If I can show this to the chief, he might lift my suspension.”

  “If you do that, I will never talk to you again,” I said.

  “It’s just rum,” Mettle said.

  I yanked the bottle out of his armpit and nestled it back inside the crate and the shredded paper as if it were a baby in a manger. “It’s not yours. Keep your hands off.”

  Mettle pulled out a strip of paper. “These look like shredded financial records.”

  “Promise me you won’t say a word.”

  Mettle stared at me. His eyes glinted in the light reflecting off the wet walls.

  “One week,” Mettle said. “That’s it. Then I’m reporting it.”

  The moment I got back to the inn, I submitted my visitation information to the state’s website. Mettle insisted on going with me for “protection” (apparently, the bars and locks and guards weren’t as good as his presence), so I added his name to the form. To accommodate families, three people were allowed to go at a single time which was one more guest than the average inmate received during the length of his entire stay.

  In other words, Dimitri should consider himself lucky.

  Out in the driveway, I stood beside the cruiser and said goodnight to Mettle. He turned the screwdriver and the engine started.

  He leaned out his window. “This is actually highly convenient. I recommend drilling your Honda when you get a chance. You don’t need to remember your keys. All it needs is a good screw and you’re good to go.”

  “Goodnight, Trooper.”

  He flicked on his high beams and they cut a yellow path down my driveway, the pebbles casting shadows larger than their source.

  “Good sleuthing tonight, Casket. I think we might be getting somewhere.”

  “Fingers crossed,” I said.

  “Are you sure I can’t tempt you for some low-carb wine, some lean chicken breasts, and a super comfy couch? We’ll Netflix and chill.”

  I rolled my eyes. “That offensive phrase was popular back when I was still teaching. Get with the times, Mettle. Your lingo is outdated.”

  “Can I tempt you for an early morning workout?”

  “I know what that means too.”

  “Yeah, it means bench press and squats. Tomorrow’s a big muscle group day. Let’s grab some protein shakes and get sweaty.”

  I wrinkled my nose. Sweat was when your skin cried. “How are you going to work out if you can’t go to the barracks?”

  Mettle’s grin melted. He had forgotten. “Half the reason why I became a cop in the first place was to get a free gym membership. I guess we’ll have to stay up all night then.”

  “Your persistence is bordering on stalking, Matt.”

  “It comes with the territory. What do you say?”

  I wasn’t sure why I kept avoiding an actual date with him. Maybe it was because I couldn’t erase the memories of him making out with Bella. Maybe I was afraid that I might actually like him. Or maybe, I was worried I might end up with a pack of steroid-brained toddlers running around the inn, trying to bench press my guests.

  “I can’t,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “I just remembered something I agreed to do.”

  “What?”

  “That’s my business.”

  “You’re being awfully coy, Casket. If this has anything to do with the case again, I’d advise you to tell me right away, or else you may be obstructing justice.”

  “You’re suspended, remember?” I said. “That means I can keep all the secrets from you I want.”

  16

  He was late.

  The next evening, teetering uncomfortably in the only pair of heels I owned, I stepped onto the tiled floor of the high school cafetorenasium—a combined cafeteria, gymnasium, and auditorium in which the Maine state flag and the Star Spangled Banner dangled from poles jutting toward the ceiling at an angle as severe as a fascist salute.

  A blast of nostalgia Maced me in the face. The multipurpose room was large and smelled of old lockers and gym shorts, the girders overhead exposed, the basketball nets cranked up to the caged lights, the bleachers retracted into the walls to make room for the dancing and the punchbowls and the glittering banners that said, Welcome Class of Years Gone By.

  The generic slogan suggested recycling.

  The powerful heating vents kicked in and the stars and stripes and the Maine state flag danced together for a moment and then got all twisted up and intertwined like a pretzel braid or like when Ishmael and Queequeq cuddled and wrapped their legs around each other.

  There were lots of faces I recognized, but had forgotten—or buried. Old classmates were mingling, drinking, laughing, and acting like they had all gotten along and were the best of friends in high school, when really, half of these people wouldn’t have hesitated to bare-ass one another’s pillows. After teaching in New York, I was also struck by how ridiculously white the gathering was. The only color in this crowd was after they imbibed too much punch and popped a few blood vessels in their cheeks.

  From the cutest little purse I owned, I pulled out a compact to check my make-up. My hand was shaking so badly, my reflection danced in the rattling mirror. If ever there was a time for Bella Donley’s specially tainted product, it was now.

  Someone grabbed my arm and I gasped.

  “Relax, you look great,” Kendall said.

  He was wearing a sharp three-piece suit, his hair in a perfect wave, his chin looking so smooth and plastic, he must have lasered off his stubble. In other words, fantastic, but not much different from his normal workplace attire.

  I slid the compact back into my purse. “I thought you were planning to leave me as chum.”

  Kendall smiled. “That wouldn’t be very chummy of me, now would it? I totally apologize. I got held up at the office this afternoon. I called you, but you didn’t pick up.”

  “I didn’t hear it ring,” I said.
r />   “No matter. It’s water under the keel,” he said and held out an arm. “Shall we try to fit in?”

  I took him by the bicep. It was firm, not Mettle-firm, but well-toned for a desk jock. I would need Kendall as a buffer if I was going to survive the night—and I wouldn’t mind if he kept me from falling on my butt in the process.

  Ahead, were two married couples, Ashley and Josh Delaney and Michael and Susan Yenaled. Both women had light brown hair and both men had dark brown hair. Both women had been cheerleaders and both men had been football players. Each of them had screwed each other. Literally. Like Ashley and Michael, Josh and Susan had been “items.” Sometime after graduation, they had all swapped partners. Based on how intimately they were chatting and drinking from the communal punchbowl, I assumed they were still playing bury the salami, this time in their neighbor’s backyards.

  Every couple we walked past looked us up and down, as if Kendall and I were an unlikely pair of calves headed for the slaughterhouse. I imagined how much worse the scrutiny would have been if I had brought Matt Mettle.

  Mettle, by the way, had possessed good enough judgment to ignore the invitation to celebrate the worst years of our lives, frankly a surprising choice given that at the time, he had been considered the king of our high school class and had been voted as such repeatedly. In fact, he had won both homecoming and prom king all four years, a veritable sweep of all that’s sacred. I mean, since when does a lowly freshman win the prom crown? Even the seniors had kissed Mettle’s feet, making his refusal to attend even more suspicious.

  Ahead, Katelyn Kennedy, Eldritch’s niece, the girl who had accused me on social media of most likely to finger an old man, and the one whom I believed was still sending me the occasional threat via text, was dipping a giant ladle into the cauldron of red punch and pouring herself a styrofoam cupful.

  I ducked and tried to hide behind Kendall.