The Stubborn Schoolhouse Spirit (The Penelope Pembroke Cozy Mystery Series)

by Nickles, Judy

  “The archives was established in 1905. Everything in this box came to us in 1934, the year before Mr. Ragsdale died.”

  “It came from him?”

  “Yes, along with all his photographic plates.”

  “We wondered where those were. Someone said that they might have been destroyed.”

  “People smashed a lot without realizing what historic treasures they are.”

  “Back to Ragsdale—he just walked in and handed somebody the stuff?”

  “Well, I wasn’t here then…”

  Penelope rolled her eyes. “All right, all right. Point taken.”

  “But it appears he donated them himself.”

  “But he left everything else to Jessie Ruth Collier.” Penelope frowned as she slipped on the gloves and lifted the lid of the box. “It’s like he was leaving a message or something.”

  “You never know.” The younger man opened the door of the small private room. “Take your time. We’re here until five today.”

  ****

  Weighed down by a mountain of truth, Penelope left just before the research room closed. She almost didn’t see the familiar blue pickup pull into the space she vacated. She did a double-take when she saw Chuck Runyon head for the steps with a briefcase in his hand.

  Two hours later, slowed by rush hour traffic on the interstate, she parked in the garage and sat clutching the steering wheel. I should’ve left well enough alone. Like Sam’s always telling me, I didn’t need to know.

  She scooped her purse from the passenger seat and fingered the small notebook beside it. I didn’t tell anybody but Daddy where I was going today. Nobody has to know any of this. But if I hadn’t stuck my nose in where it didn’t belong, I wouldn’t know what I know. She chewed her bottom lip. But I did, and now I know everything about the town’s founder and its most illustrious citizen. What a mess. What a rotten mess I’ve gotten myself into.

  She tried to push Chuck below the raging river of her mind, but he kept bobbing up. What business did he have at the archives? The portraits? They’d already been checked out by an expert, and now they were gone. So what was in the briefcase, and who was he going to see?

  She glanced at her watch. Just past five o’clock, and Jake’s truck was nowhere in sight. Probably he was enjoying a beer and a Reuben at the Sit-n-Swill, which meant he wouldn’t be home for a while. I could go to the police station and tell Bradley what I found out…let it drop about seeing Chuck in Little Rock…but he wouldn’t listen. He’d think I was making something out of nothing.

  She backed out of the garage and turned around in the curving drive. At the end, she stopped and started to turn right toward City Hall. But as she glanced left, she saw a blue truck turn onto South School Street. She turned left toward the old school.

  By the time she reached the intersection, the truck had disappeared. The school loomed in front of her, its dark windows gaping like so many vacant, skeletal eyes. Did he park around back? Why are you so sure it was Chuck Runyon’s blue truck? He couldn’t have beaten you back to Amaryllis…unless…there was the back way with no traffic, but…

  She edged over the curb at the deserted intersection and coasted to a stop behind a large oak on the vacant lot. Sam told me to stay away from here, but I didn’t promise. I just said I’d think about it. Maybe Mary Lynn had the right idea—burn it down. Get rid of Jeremiah and Jessie Ruth once and for all. Get rid of the basement before we find another dead body down there. Down there…what’s really down there? Why did Jessie Ruth wall up the second basement? Maybe the outside door is walled up, too. Sam just found the doors, but he didn’t open them. Maybe nobody can get in that way either.

  She slid down in the seat and rested her nose against the steering wheel, but her eyes stayed glued to the old school. I know why Vincent Ives was down there, but I don’t know about Marlo Howard. Whoever left her there had to know she’d be found, so why didn’t he dump her somewhere else? Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe…

  Penelope straightened. Something’s down there in that second basement, and it had to get there somehow. What was it Sam said about that Chicago speakeasy with the brick wall the Feds never could get open? A trip wire…whatever that is…

  She slid out of the SUV, telling herself she was insane but at the same time reaching into her purse for the key to the front door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Remembering the door’s characteristic groan, she opened it just enough to slip through and eased it closed again, then stood listening. Dead silence met her ears. Hugging the wall, she took a few steps toward the main room. The sheet covering the papers she and Mary Lynn had been sorting remained undisturbed. She skirted the table and stopped to listen again. Nothing.

  In the back room, the key-hole seemed to taunt her, daring her to open it. She grasped the knob and twisted it in slow motion. Her fingers felt for the switch beside the door, and light flooded the basement where the boiler slumbered. “Hello?”

  Who the heck do I think is going to answer me? Jeremiah? Jessie Ruth? Okay, I’m in here. and there’s got to be some way to get from this basement into the other one. She went to the window and looked for a blue pickup. Okay, whoever it was didn’t stop here. Maybe he was just looking…but what was he looking for? He’s gone now. Nobody’s here but me…and I’m going down and find that second basement. I just hope I don’t find another dead body.

  Her neck prickled, but she started down the wooden steps. If that light goes out again… She retraced her steps and found the flashlight Mary Lynn kept on a shelf beside the door. There’s nobody down there, but there’s something beyond that wall. Whatever it is, it’s causing the whole problem here…or is it? She hesitated on the second step. What I’m doing is beyond stupid. If anything happens, Bradley’ll kill me even if I’m already dead!

  The light stayed on, but Penelope switched on the flashlight to search the dark corners. As the beam played from floor to ceiling, she saw only a solid wall. There’s a door…there’s got to be a door… She ran her fingers over the crevasses between the bricks. Get out of here, Penelope. Turn around and walk—no, run up those stairs right now. Sam said…

  Her fingers climbed the wall, then moved horizontally toward the corner before something stopped them. That’s it. The tripwire. She closed her thumb and forefinger around it. Now what? Get out, Penelope. Go tell Bradley what you’ve found. He’ll take care of it. He has that nice big gun on his belt, and you’ve got a piddling flashlight.

  When she felt the wall move, she had to lean against it to steady her trembling body. Once it started, it didn’t stop. Cold musty air enveloped her. Slowly she reached through the opening with the flashlight—and a hand closed around her wrist, jerking her inside the blackness. The scream echoing off the walls belonged to her.

  “Shut up!” A beam of light blinded her. “Who the hell are you?”

  Penelope tried to shield her eyes. Her mouth had gone too dry to form words. She jerked her wrist, but the man held it like a vise. He seemed to be studying her. An expletive assaulted Penelope’s ears. “The cop’s mother! You’re the cop’s mother.”

  As the light drifted away from her face allowing her to see again. Penelope searched for enough moisture to make her mouth work “You’re the man I saw with Marlo Howard at the Valentine dance.”

  He frowned.

  “Louie. That’s what she called you, but it’s Lewis Collier, isn’t it?” She let her eyes drift away from his to re-gather her courage and saw the wooden packing crates three-deep around the wall. “Hot art?” Her heart threatened to burst from her body. She took a deep breath.

  “What?” He loosened his grip on her wrist, and she moved away from him.

  “You’re an art thief.”

  His surprised expression gave way to amusement. “What gives you that idea?”

  “Those.” She waved her hand toward the packing crates. “This was a good place to hide stuff, too. Who told you about it? Jessie Ruth?”

  “Who else?”
<
br />   “Please tell me she wasn’t a thief, too.”

  He laughed. “She was a paragon of virtue.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” Penelope glanced around the room again. In the only empty corner, several ancient cameras on tripods leaned against the wall. Elation didn’t last long as the thought came to her that Lewis Collier was not only an art thief but likely a murderer as well. Her stomach knotted, and her knees threatened to give way.

  “I take it you didn’t come looking for me,” Lewis Collier said.

  Penelope shook her head. “Those old cameras over there.”

  His head whipped around. “What?”

  Penelope took advantage of his distraction to squeeze back through the wall. On the other side, Chuck Runyon stood waiting, one finger on his lips. His other hand held a gun.

  Penelope heard Lewis Collier fighting to widen the space in the wall so he could get through, too. Chuck jerked his head toward the stairs, indicating Penelope should go up. She didn’t argue with him, taking the stairs two at a time and not stopping until she’d reached the front door. She threw it open with the idea of running somewhere, anywhere, just away from the school, but Sam’s hands on her shoulders brought her to an abrupt halt. Their eyes locked, his steely blue ones terrifying her more than Lewis Collier’s.

  He shoved her back into the foyer and against a wall. “Don’t move,” he said, his voice barely registering a sound in the silence. Then, as he strode off toward the back room, she saw him take a gun from his waistband. She slid down the wall to the floor and huddled there waiting for somebody to die…hopefully not herself.

  ****

  She had only vague memories of Bradley escorting her out of the building sometime later and putting her in the back of his patrol car. How he got there, she didn’t know. She only knew his taciturn silence frightened her.

  She saw Parnell pull around the side of the school, the side where Sam had found the outside door to the second basement, but she couldn’t see what was going on and didn’t really want to know. She startled as Rosabel peered in the window and spoke her name. “Mrs. Pembroke, can you drive your car home?”

  Penelope nodded.

  Rosabel didn’t smile as she opened the door and gave Penelope a hand up.

  ****

  Jake sat at the kitchen table. “Nellie, what’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  She walked past him without speaking. Inside her room, she locked the door and collapsed on the bed. She wasn’t sure how much time passed before she heard Bradley call, “Mother, I know you’re in there. I need to talk to you.”

  He took her downstairs to the kitchen where Jake waited for them. “What were you doing at the old school?” Bradley asked.

  Penelope shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Come on, Mother, you can do better than that.”

  “I figured out where Edgar Ragsdale’s photographic equipment was, and I went looking for it.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “I saw Chuck Runyon at the archives in Little Rock today, and after I got back, I thought I saw him turn in behind the old school.”

  “So you followed him.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Then what exactly did you do?”

  She took a deep breath. “I found the way through the wall into the second basement and ran into Lewis Collier and saw the stash of art I guess he was going to fence.”

  Bradley closed his eyes. “Oh, Mother.”

  “Well, he was, wasn’t he? And I’m betting he killed Marlo Howard.”

  “And he would’ve killed you, too.”

  “Nellie, what…” Jake’s face went a shade paler.

  “He didn’t, thanks to Chuck Runyon, and I guess you aren’t going to tell me how he figures into all this, are you?”

  “I’m not going to tell you anything.” Bradley stood up. “You weren’t out there, you didn’t see anything, and you don’t know squat. Understand?”

  Penelope nodded.

  “I’ll deal with you later.”

  “Don’t threaten me!” Penelope flared.

  “That’s not a threat,” Bradley said, his voice almost menacing. “It’s a promise.”

  ****

  “I don’t know why I did it, Daddy. I’ve never done anything that impulsive…that stupid… not ever in my life. Unless you want to count the night in the back seat of Travis Pembroke’s new car. The night I realized I didn’t want to marry him…but by then I didn’t think I had a choice.

  “What did you find out at the archives today?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t be so reasonable, Daddy. You were always so reasonable all the times I messed up.”

  “You’d have felt better if I yelled at you? Taken a strap to you, maybe?”

  “Maybe you should have.”

  “Ah, Nellie, that’s crazy, and you know it.”

  “Going down in that basement was crazy.”

  “Can’t argue with that.” He patted her arm. “Honeychild, I’ve done a few dumb things in my life, too. Just get over it.”

  “Bradley is really mad at me.”

  “I’d say he’s scared to death about what could’ve happened to his mother. He’ll chew you up and spit you out, and then it’ll be over.”

  “Sam was there, too, Daddy.”

  “Sam?”

  “He had a gun. A big one. I was beginning to think he was one of the good guys, but now…”

  “Brad carries a big gun, and he’s one of the good guys.”

  “This is different.” Penelope pushed herself out of the chair. “I’m going up. If Bradley comes back, tell him I died.”

  “Well, that’ll save him the trouble of killing you.” Jake’s mouth twitched.

  “Whatever.”

  “Sure, sure, I’ll him, Nellie. Get some rest. Things’ll look brighter in the morning.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  The gravel on her window at two-fourteen in the morning woke—but didn’t surprise—her. She pulled on the jeans she’d worn the day before and tugged a sweatshirt over her head.

  “Why do you do bother with the gravel when you’ve got a key?” she demanded as Sam materialized from the shadows of the porte-cochere.

  “It’s romantic, don’t you think, remembering our first encounter?”

  “It blessed is not, and why would I want to remember…”

  He pulled her into his arms and covered her mouth with his. “You all right, Nell?”

  “Now that you ask, no. If looks could’ve killed me this afternoon, between you and Bradley I’d be dead twice over.”

  His lips cut her off again. Then he said, “It was a stupid thing to do.”

  “Don’t rub it in.”

  “I’ll let your son do that. Come take a walk with me.”

  “It’s two-blessed-thirty in the morning!”

  “Past the witching hour, so you’re safe.”

  “Not with you, I’m not.” She stepped back and looked him in the eye. “Unless you’re going to tell me what all that was about out at the old school this afternoon.”

  He folded her hand in his. “Let’s go.”

  ****

  Why am I going with him? I did it before and nearly got myself killed, and this time I may very well succeed. We’re going to the old school. I know it. Back to the scene of the crime, just like that night at Pembroke Point. Is he going to show me a stack of bodies in the basement? I wouldn’t put it past him.

  “Got your key?”

  Relief swept Penelope. “I blessed do not, so let’s go home.”

  In the glow of the street light, she watched the familiar grin spread over his face. “Never mind. I’ve got one.”

  “Who did you steal it from?”

  “I didn’t steal it. I borrowed it and had a duplicate made.”

  “You stole my key! You…you…”

  He laughed. “Stop babbling, Nell.” He
pulled her along with him to the back door from the playground to the storage space with the key-hole. When they were inside, he pulled the shades and turned on the light. “Now—that’s better.”

  “I hope Parnell’s on patrol tonight. He’ll see the light, and I’ll tell him you kidnapped me, and…”

  Sam put his hand over her mouth, then replaced it with his lips. “Shut up, Nell.”

  “Why did you bring me here, of all places?”

  “Oh, I thought we might have a midnight drink with old Jeremiah and Jessie Ruth.”

  “If you knew…”

  “I know you did something really dangerous this afternoon.”

  “I thought I was by myself.”

  “You weren’t.”

  “So go ahead and chew me out.”

  “I think that’s been done already.” He gathered her hands in his. “It was just lucky I saw you park at the curb and followed you when you got out.”

  “Why?”

  “If you have to ask, you don’t need to know.” He slipped an arm around her shoulders and hugged her closer. “Nothing was supposed to come down until tonight.”

  “Tonight.”

  He nodded.

  “So it’s all over.”

  “You could say that.”

  “So you got Lewis Collier and Chuck Runyon? They’re locked up?”

  “I expect Chuck is locked up at Pembroke Point wondering exactly what happened this afternoon and having a drink to calm his nerves.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Let’s just say he accepted my invitation to leave in a hurry and forget he was ever there.”

  “But what was he doing there?” Penelope put her hands on Sam’s face and held on.

  “He did some research of his own, put two and two together, and came up with four. But he forgot to figure in that the pros play for keeps. All he wanted to do was redeem himself. He’d mentioned the Bancrofts somewhere within Marlo’s hearing--either on New Year’s Eve or when she opened The Swan--and she’d asked to see them, and he let her.”

  “Without Bradley’s permission.”

  “Which is why he felt so responsible when they were stolen. Anyway, he suspected her from the first, but he was afraid to say anything, afraid he’d be considered an accessory. So he started sleuthing on his own, always a dangerous thing to do.”