Grace Against the Clock (A Manor House Mystery)

by Julie Hyzy

  “Your basement is set up differently,” I said as I turned in place. “Looks like one of the prior owners intended to put a room or two down here.”

  “Yeah, well. This is how it was when we bought it.”

  Where my bare basement walls were a mishmash of stone, uneven concrete, and wood, Pedota’s walls had been covered. From the looks of it, a long time ago.

  There were a few more pull-chain bulbs that Pedota lit as we made our way to the southwestern edge of his basement. He turned on the last one and gestured with an arrogant smile. “See,” he said, “nothing.”

  I wouldn’t say there was nothing. Pedota had dozens of cardboard boxes of varying sizes stacked along the wall. Water-stained and buckling from the weight of boxes above, the bottom row was probably the most likely source for the heavy mildew scent in the air.

  I wandered a few steps forward, trying to picture where the passage would hit the basement if it appeared in a mirror spot to my house. “Do you mind if I look a little closer?”

  Hillary had latched onto Pedota’s arm—oh so professionally—and he seemed to resent me for pulling his attention away from her.

  “You go ahead and look,” Hillary said, waving at me. She hadn’t even consulted him. “Todd won’t mind.” She batted her eyelashes as she stared up at him. Literally batted her eyelashes. I didn’t believe women actually did that. “Do you, Todd?”

  “Go ahead,” he mumbled as she cooed conversation too quietly for me to hear. “Whatever.”

  Bruce had been subdued throughout. Now he and I exchanged a look as we eased deeper into the basement.

  “When do you think this place was last cleaned?” he asked me.

  “Take a peek at what’s written on the sides of the boxes.” I pointed at Vicki’s name, which adorned everything along the bottom row. “You can’t tell me he isn’t bitter. Five years later, he’s still holding on to her stuff.”

  “And leaving it where it’s damp so everything gets ruined,” Bruce finished. “What a nice guy.”

  I stole a quick glance back at Pedota and Hillary. They were about fifteen feet away, and I knew they wouldn’t be able to hear our whispers. “Yeah, well,” I said, “considering what she did, I suppose I don’t blame him.”

  “I’m not seeing anything like the submarine hatch we have on our side,” Bruce said.

  I’d come to the same conclusion. There wasn’t even an old workbench to tear out that might be concealing it. I made my way to the southeastern corner of his basement and took seven steps north.

  “You counted that, too?” Bruce asked.

  Rather than answer, I stopped and stared at the wall where I would have expected the door to be. “Is there anything different about this part of the basement?” I asked, desperate now. I couldn’t imagine Todd Pedota allowing us back for a second search. “Anything at all?”

  Bruce tucked his hands into his sides and surveyed. “The lighting’s not too good in here.” He waved a hand. “I’d say that the section of wall between that beam”—he indicated a tall structure to his right—“and that one”—he pointed about ten feet to his left—“is a different color than the rest of the basement, but it could be my eyes playing tricks.”

  Boxes were stacked about shoulder-high and covered the base of the wall completely. “Do you mind if we move a couple of these?” I asked Pedota.

  Hillary answered, “Go right ahead.”

  Bruce gave me an amused look. Pedota didn’t seem to care in the least. I picked up my first box and winced at the whoosh of stale air that it threw up into my face. “Let’s get as many of these out of the way as we can before our neighbor starts paying attention again. I know I wouldn’t want strangers moving my stuff around.”

  Hillary kept Pedota chatting while Bruce and I moved about a dozen or so boxes. I leaned forward to touch the blank wall we’d uncovered. I scratched my fingernails against it and caught a slight hollow sound. I tapped.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked.

  Bruce nodded, sizing the wall up and down. “Sounds like that might be fake.” He pressed the fingertips of both hands against the wide panel and pushed. “There’s a little give.”

  As if on cue, Hillary scuttled forward. “Did you find anything?”

  I wiped my hands against each other, trying to rid them of excess grime. “Could be.”

  Todd Pedota had picked up on the wall sound and the “give” as soon as Bruce pointed it out. “No way,” he said. “No way.”

  Using both hands, he mimicked Bruce’s movements, using significantly more force. The wall didn’t move a lot, but it was enough for us all to see.

  “Wait,” he said, then tried the experiment again in another part of the basement. No give. He tried another spot. Same result. Finally, he returned to the wall we’d uncovered, and pushed at it, hard.

  He stepped back. “How did I never notice that?”

  I pointed to the boxes we’d moved. “Have these been here for five years?”

  He nodded. “We bought the house about two years before that, and Vicki started talking about redecorating. But we never got past the top floor. Got the master bedroom done.” He shook his head. “I hate the color so much I sleep in one of the spares. Never made it to changing things in the basement.” He stepped back and tucked his fingers into his back pockets. “We had plans when we first moved in. Then she started working for Dr. Keay and that was the end of that.”

  “She worked for Dr. Keay?” I asked. Frances hadn’t mentioned that.

  “One of his receptionists.” Pedota snorted, then added, “More like one of his harem.”

  “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

  He shrugged, hands still tight inside his jeans. “Worse was how. You’d think she’d have the decency to tell me she wants out of the marriage. Instead she gets herself involved with a drunken idiot who wraps his fat SUV around a tree and nearly kills them both.” Under his breath, he muttered, “Would have made my life easier.”

  I couldn’t stop myself. “Made what easier?”

  “Nothing. Forget it.” Pedota’s mouth went flat as he regarded me for a half second. He waggled his shoulders, as though shaking the moment away. “You’re the expert on solving problems. How do you propose we proceed with this? Tear down the wall?”

  I didn’t have an answer, but because he seemed willing to continue the expedition, I worked my fingers around the edge of the fake wall. Abutted on either side by floor-to-ceiling beams whose paint had begun to flake off over the years, the wall didn’t look the least bit suspicious to the casual observer. I could completely understand why no one had bothered with it before now.

  Unless Todd and Vicki had gone looking for it when they first moved in—and why would they?—or if they’d begun any remodeling down here, there was no way this simulated concrete would have been noticed.

  “Do you have a screwdriver?” I asked.

  “Flathead, I assume?” Pedota trotted off to the far end of the basement and returned with one in hand.

  “You don’t mind if I scratch your wall up a little, do you?” I asked. “I can’t imagine this will come off without some damage.”

  He almost laughed. “Look at this place,” he said. “It’s a mess and it smells bad. Do whatever you like. I’m curious now, too.”

  I wedged the flat edge of the screwdriver between the wall and the left-hand beam. There couldn’t have been more than a sixteenth of an inch to work with, but I pushed hard and angled until I managed a little leverage.

  “I should be doing that,” Pedota said, but he didn’t make a move to take the instrument from me. Reacting, perhaps, to my reluctance to hand it over, he added, “Go ahead. You’ve got more experience than I do.”

  I didn’t really, but rather than correct him, I pressed on. “Got it, I think,” I said through gritted teeth. The metal edge of the screwd
river had found a sweet spot. I used both hands to push the plastic handle closer to the wall, forcing the fake wall forward.

  “It’s working,” Bruce said. He leaned in and tried to fit the tips of his fingers around the edge as it became free.

  Hillary didn’t say anything. She watched, hands clasped and eyes bright, from behind where Todd Pedota stood.

  He took a step forward. “Need help?”

  I was so close I could practically taste it. “No,” I grunted as I shoved the screwdriver harder with one hand, and worked to pull at the fake wall with the other. “I think we just about have—”

  It came free in a flash, causing me and Bruce to stumble backward. I lost my hold on the screwdriver and it clattered to the floor. The fake wall, which now revealed itself as a thin piece of wood, which had been coated with a gray concrete-like surface, wasn’t completely removed from the wall behind it, but it had been dislodged enough for us to get a good grip on two sides and pull.

  Bruce, Todd, and I did just that. Hillary watched. It took three tries, but when it came down, it did, fast. The fact that none of us fell on our backsides, ripped open our hands, or lost blood made it a win in my book.

  “And there it is,” Hillary said with triumph as though she’d singlehandedly uncovered the wall. “Exactly like the one at your house, Grace.”

  She was right. As though someone had physically lifted it from the wall in my basement and installed it here, the door was identical. The same counter-set handle. The same lock. I wished we’d brought Larry the Locksmith with us on our little trek.

  “A door?” Todd Pedota’s exclamation made me stare at him in disbelief. Hadn’t that been what we’d been telling him since we arrived?

  He stepped forward to touch the submarine-like door inset in the metal wall, much the way I had at first. “This must be the handle,” he said.

  I was about to warn him that it was locked, but he pulled before I could get the words out. To my surprise, and—judging from the gasps around me—everyone else’s, it swung wide open.

  “But it didn’t open from the inside,” Bruce said to me. His hands went wide in puzzlement. “How come it isn’t locked?”

  I didn’t know. Todd Pedota waved his hand in front of his face. “Smells like wet dirt,” he said, “and rot.” He stuck his head in and when he spoke, his words bounced around, hollow. “I thought you said this was a tunnel. It looks like a small coal room to me.”

  We pointed out the fake back wall. I showed him how to squeeze around it and explained how the passage led to my basement. The wood on this side appeared to be in better shape than on my side. Newer, maybe.

  “I don’t understand why it wouldn’t budge for us,” Bruce said, examining the swung-out door. “The wall we tore down was strong, but I have to believe we would have felt some give.”

  I tended to agree with him. “Hang on,” I said, climbing in. “Close the door and let me try to open it from the inside.”

  For some reason, the hinges on this side of the passage didn’t squeal the way mine did, either. I started to wonder if the two ends had been closed up at different times. When Bruce closed the metal door with a bang, I was thrown into absolute darkness. I’d expected that, but it was still unsettling.

  Pressing against the door and gripping the handle tightly, I pushed. Nothing. I tried again with the same result. Using the tips of my fingers to walk around the edge, I sought a mechanism that would allow me to unlock it from the inside. Nothing, again.

  Bruce shouted to me from the other side. “Should we open it?”

  “Not yet,” I shouted back.

  I flattened my hands against the door and moved them, slowly, searching for a lever, a latch, anything that might unlock the door. Came up empty. Although it felt like I’d been in this dark space for ten minutes, it probably had been no more than two. I gave the door a few more pushes and played with the handle again.

  “Giving up,” I shouted. “Let me out.”

  A second later, the door swung open and even though the basement was illuminated only by bare bulbs, I blinked at the sudden light.

  “No way out once you’re in there,” I said unnecessarily. “At least, not that I could find. You get in and then you’re stuck.”

  “Is it the same on your side?” Pedota asked.

  I shrugged. “Forgot to check. I will, though.”

  “Now that this is open, we need to be careful that no one gets trapped inside,” Bruce said. “That could be disastrous.”

  Hillary gave a little shudder. “Maybe Larry can come back sometime and fix these doors so that they can be opened from the inside. That is, if you’re okay with that, Todd.”

  Todd Pedota had his arms folded across his chest, studying the door. With a grin that came across as a leer, he said, “I think it’s a marvelous idea.”

  Chapter 19

  Frances trundled into my office the following morning, chained glasses perched halfway down her nose, a folder shoved under one arm. She leaned across my desk to press one of her thick fingers down on today’s date in my calendar. “You have an appointment at one this afternoon.”

  I finger-combed my hair, buying time. Whatever this appointment was, Frances was clearly proud to have arranged it. Tugging at the hem of her lilac-littered polyester shell, she righted herself and stared down at me, eyes sharp.

  I sat back, hands crossed on my lap.

  In her eagerness for me to bite, she fairly vibrated with anticipation.

  It wasn’t that I wanted to annoy her by prolonging the moment. It wasn’t even that I wasn’t interested to know who I was meeting with, or why. What kept me from asking for more information in that long moment was the unexpected realization that I wasn’t on edge with Frances the way I used to be.

  The woman hadn’t uttered a snide remark about me or my life in a while. Could it be that—gasp!—we were beginning to get along?

  “Who am I meeting with?”

  She was close to my desk, but took a half step forward nonetheless. “You’ll let me in on it, won’t you? I set this up, I surely ought to be invited in to the meeting.”

  “Why don’t you tell me who’s coming here, first.” When her eyes dimmed ever so slightly, I added, “And after you do, I’ll share my scoop with you.”

  “If it’s about the secret passageway you found in your basement, that’s old news,” she said.

  “How?” My hands slapped the top of my desk. “That happened yesterday. How in the world do you know about it already?”

  She tugged the folder out from under her arm, opened it, and placed a newspaper in front of me. “You made the front page.”

  Below continuing coverage of Dr. Keay’s murder investigation was an “in-depth” story about the discovery of the passage in my home. “Oh,” I said.

  “Nice photo.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at her, but couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or sincere. Judging from the photo they’d chosen to feature, I had to guess she was taking the opportunity to slam. The photographer had caught my expression when I’d first seen the crowd in my basement. My mouth was open, and the hyperbright flash made it look as though my nose had doubled in size. I wasn’t the most photogenic person on the planet, but the last picture of me that looked this bad had been taken in seventh grade, when I had braces, streaky hair, and mismatched clothing.

  I scanned the article, barely resisting the urge to cover the photo with my hand.

  “I’ll bet you can buy a copy of that shot from the newspaper if you want.”

  “Ha-ha.”

  The story was accurate on a few counts—that we’d found a door, opened it, discovered a passage, and believed it might have been built for the Underground Railroad. The story missed the mention of Prohibition and the fact that the passage connected to Todd Pedota’s house. The reporter and his girlfriend had been
there for the tramp across the yards, but not for our visit to Todd’s home, so the fact that they’d left that part out made sense.

  I mentioned that to Frances as I skimmed. “The other part that’s missing is that we found a few valuable artifacts in the space.”

  “Like what?”

  I told her about the poison bottles and the other items we’d picked up. “I’m stopping by the historical society after work. Wes McIntyre said he’d do a little homework on prior owners for me.”

  One side of Frances’s mouth curled up. “Oh?” she said with the same sort of tone she used whenever speculating on my love life. “A little homework? Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

  “Quit your imagining, Frances. I’m seeing Adam, remember?”

  She made a face. “How could I forget?”

  “Why do you have such a problem with him?”

  “Me?” She pointed to her chest in a way that practically begged for an acting award. “I don’t have an opinion on the matter. Why should I?”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Back to the original topic,” I said. “Who’s coming in to meet me today at one?”

  “To meet with you and the Mister,” she corrected me.

  “Fine. Who?”

  The smugness was back. She gave a little wiggle of glee and said, “Joyce Swedburg.”

  “Why does she want to see me?” I asked.

  “She doesn’t.” Frances gave an exasperated head shake. “You want to see her.”

  “I do?”

  Now it was my assistant’s turn to roll her eyes. “How can you solve this murder if you don’t interview all the suspects?”

  “First of all, Joyce wasn’t here when Dr. Keay was murdered, remember?”

  “She may have slipped him something before the party. It had to be her.”