Being the Steel Drummer - a Maggie Gale Mystery

by Liz Bradbury

  “OK then, let’s have at it. If you get scared, just pretend it’s a nightmare,” I suggested.

  Kathryn seemed remarkably amused considering we were probing a dark passage under a coffin. This was an interesting thing to find out about her. Kind of a thrill in itself.

  Focus on the task at hand, I told myself.

  We edged along the incline slowly until the stone ramp leveled out. There was a large oak lever there. I pulled it. It rattled and moaned and moved the coffin back in place. My flashlight showed a passage ahead that went east and one behind us to the west.

  The floor of the passageway was rough stone. The walls were packed earth. I stood still and listened. It was oppressively quiet. I took off my backpack and fished out my little compass. I wanted to know exactly where we were going, so we could be sure to find our way back out. It was a little warmer down here; there was air movement but no breeze and no feeling of frost. Just that constant sixty-degree temperature you read about in heat pump ads.

  This was how the shooter had gotten out of the cemetery without being spotted by me or the police. I was mildly glad that was cleared up, but I was far more concerned that a person with a gun had access to this tunnel and might even be down here with us. Though why someone like that would stick around I couldn’t imagine. Even if there were valuable antiques down here, the shooter was now facing a murder charge.

  On a hunch, I took out my phone and redialed Samson Henshaw’s number. A note of ring tone made us both jump. A light flickered on the tunnel floor and went out. Samson’s phone was right at our feet. I picked it up.

  “Well, that clears up that mystery,” said Kathryn.

  “Some of it, but the Where’s Samson? part is still wide open.” And that worried me.

  We made our way along the eastern passage that angled downhill. In about fifty yards the relatively narrow passage T-boned into a larger tunnel that had a fitted cobblestone floor, walls, and ceiling. In the larger tunnel were cracked pipes made of molded clay running along the wall. I shined the light around, then looked at the compass.

  “We must be under 10th Street now,” said Kathryn. “I guess this access was built when they fitted all the houses with gas lighting. These look like very old gas pipes. Or do you think this was the sewer main?” she asked.

  “The sewer pipes are at the backs of the houses. But at one time the Mews was at the back of the big stately homes. I guess it might have been the sewer then and they refitted it for gas at the turn of the century. I think we’re below the contemporary water and gas lines now.” I took out my phone. Apparently the streets of this part of Fenchester were made of kryptonite, because I had zero bars.

  “Kind of creepy down here,” said Kathryn softly.

  I couldn’t have agreed more, but I was trying to act tough. So I just nodded in the dark. Kathryn took out her phone to use as a flashlight. Then she sniffed. “It must have been very unpleasant smelling back in the days after it was built.”

  “Of course in those days, when horses were the mode of transportation, the streets stank of horse shit and most people still used chamber pots that they emptied into the gutters each morning. So maybe those who had to work down here didn’t notice it as much,” I said.

  “It doesn’t smell bad now, though,” she sniffed again. “It smells like...”

  “Lavender.”

  “Yes. How could that be?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. If this were a fiction novel, it would be a plot point. But maybe we just stepped on some dried lavender bushes outside the crypt and because there’s no breeze we can smell it now?”

  “Or maybe Evangeline Fen’s ghost is lurking here in the dark. Now that you see ghosts we should consider...”

  “Let’s not consider that right now,” I said.

  Kathryn snorted.

  We headed right, toward the Mews. It felt as though we’d gone about half a block when Kathryn said, “There are steps up there to the left.” When we got a little closer, she said, “When is a door not a door?”

  “When it’s ajar,” I answered.

  Three stone steps led up to a heavy wooden door that was open a few inches. The knob was big and old-fashioned, like Alice’s after she shrank.

  “Where are we?” asked Kathryn. “I’ve lost my bearings.”

  “Still under 10th. I’d guess the middle of the 500 block.

  The door swung out and we climbed a steep staircase. On a landing at the top of the stairs was another huge oak door on strap hinges. It had a heavy wooden bar wedged through supports. The bar was held in place by an old padlock on a wrought iron hasp.

  “Hmmmm,” said Kathryn, touching the lock. “It’s been oiled.” She rubbed her fingers together.

  The lock was the type that an old skeleton key would open. On a hunch I took out my keys and selected the old-fashioned brass key that went to one of locks on Farrel and Jessie’s house.

  “What, no utility belt?”

  “Accessories do make the outfit, but I’m traveling light. I can pick locks, too.” But I didn’t need to; the key popped the lock in one twist.

  As we slid the bar out of the supports, Kathryn said, “So this would be that breaking and entering I’ve heard so much about?”

  “We didn’t actually break anything,” I said. “We’re following clues.”

  “Lesbian College Professor Arrested in Attempted Burglary,” mused Kathryn.

  “Do you think they’d really say Lesbian?”

  “Well, if it was Fox.”

  I turned the big knob and we pushed the creaky door open to another set of stairs.

  “Why are we carrying that bar up the stairs?” Kathryn asked as we reached the top.

  “Because I don’t want one of the undead living under the graveyard to trap us by putting the bar back in place while we’re sleuthing for clues.”

  I swept my flashlight around and spied electric wires snaking down one of the walls to an old-fashioned light switch. I went to it and tweaked the Bakelite knob gingerly between two fingers. I twisted it, hoping I wouldn’t electrocute myself.

  Light flooded the room from large clear bulbs in rows near the high ceiling. Some of the bulbs were out, but the light from the rest allowed us to see the whole room.

  It was huge and had a faintly unpleasant smell. Thin horizontal windows lined the very top of the twenty-foot brick walls. On one side was a row of stacked wooden boxes.

  But it was the rest of the large room that really caught my attention. It was an artist’s studio. A sculptor’s. And except that some of the metal tools were rusty from disuse, the place was ready to produce art.

  There were five huge porcelain vats against one wall, each the size of a hot tub. Two of them had their lids pushed off to expose a vast quantity of dried clay. Clay-shaping and stone-carving tools stood ready in racks on the shelves that lined another wall. There were armatures, small wooden mannequins, and calipers of all sizes. Sketches were tacked to large bulletin boards above long tables and heavy stands.

  On the wall of shelves to one side was a vast number of finished and nearly finished sculptures. Full bodies, busts, torsos, heads, studies of shape and movement, all formed of clay or carved from stone. There were mold forms and literally hundreds of clay faces decorated with shells, pebbles, and other found objects.

  To the left of the shelves were two narrow doors. At the back wall was a steep wooden staircase that went almost to the ceiling. I swept my flashlight beam to the top of the brick wall, but there was no door up there. The stairs ended surreally at nothing.

  Also at the back wall was a refrigerator-sized block of partly carved white marble with a full set of cold chisels and several heavy wooden mallets on a table next to it. I was drawn to the stone sculpture like a pin to a magnet. A nude female form was emerging from the marble as though the stone was both giving birth to her and she was struggling to free herself from it. As though she was stepping out of a wall of churning water, her face, breast, hand, arm, knee, thi
gh, and hip, seemed to break through the rough surface.

  Kathryn joined me as I touched the sculpted arm.

  “This is Victoria’s studio,” whispered Kathryn.

  “Certainly is. And this... this is Evangeline. Look at this. Victoria had to have loved her to make her look like this. It’s like Michelangelo’s Four Seasons, yet so feminine. But still strong. I bet... I bet Victoria never intended to finish it. It’s a masterpiece. I could look at it all day.”

  We stood at the sculpture for a very long moment and finally I broke the silence. “I wonder if anyone else has ever seen this?”

  Kathryn walked back to the boxes. “Well, Frankie saw it, if he was paying attention. This is where he got his merchandise. There was a another box here. See the outline of it against the wall?”

  I scanned the room carefully. “And he took the sculpture and molded faces from those shelves. You know, he even had an old-fashioned house key that probably worked on the lock on the stairs.”

  Kathryn was drawn to a bookcase where folios of prints and drawings leaned against nine or ten books.

  “Oh, look! Look, it’s Victoria’s other journal,” said Kathryn. “See? There’s a two on the cover... and here’s a third one!” She pulled her gloves from her jacket pocket and lifted the journals from the shelf. “Maggie, there’s no reason for me not to take these is there? I’ll turn them over to the Irwin library for them to copy. I would hate to leave them here.”

  “I can’t see any reason for you not to take them if you’re turning them over to Irwin. Amanda said Victoria left everything to the college, so I suppose this all belongs to Irwin.”

  “My sculpture that I bought at the antique market?” Kathryn asked, taking off her scarf and wrapping it carefully around the journals to slide them into her shoulder bag.

  “Probably.”

  “Rats.”

  Kathryn walked back to the boxes. “They’re packed so well. Wrapped in oil cloth. Fitted joints.” She glanced around at the walls. “It’s fairly dry in here, though who knows how it is in the summer.” She touched the very edge of a sketch pinned to the board on the wall. It didn’t crack or fall away.

  I was scanning the boxes. There were splinters on the floor where one had been opened and then removed.

  “So, Frankie follows someone here. When they leave he sneaks in and opens a box,” I said. “He had an old key that would have opened the lock, figures it’s all salable, so he takes a box, grabbing a few sculptures and some of the head molds on the way out. It must have been heavy. No wonder he wanted Red to help him with the others. I wonder why only one of them was opened...”

  “But the killer found out? Perhaps we should call the other person X?”

  I snorted. “OK, we can call the person X. So Frankie repacks the stuff into a few cardboard boxes and takes the loot to Adamstown, where he makes what seemed like a mint to him. He still has merch left over, and he knows there are fourteen more boxes down here and all these figures. So he plans to come back for the grand haul with Red.”

  “But X gets wise to him... I’m so liking this detective talk.”

  “Yeah, OK, X gets wise. X is no slouch. X figures out Frankie is stealing the private stash and gets very angry. X checks around down here.” I pointed to the floor. “See here are X’s footprints. Sensible shoes, about a men’s size 7 or 8, I’d say.”

  “So X waits for Frankie in the crypt the day before the next flea market and when Frankie goes to open the passage, X shoots?” said Kathryn.

  “Right, but misses with the first shot. Frankie spins around and pushes Red out of the way and from the crypt X shoots again and hits Frankie. And then X just melts back into the earth, undiscovered. We all heard the rumble of the passage closing.” I considered for a moment. “Probably surprised X that Red was there. Had he not been, X probably would have followed Frankie to be sure he was dead.”

  “It’s so cold-blooded when it’s about one person killing another,” said Kathryn.

  I nodded. “Stay here a minute.” I stepped back from the boxes and gently walked back to the door. I got down low and held my flashlight so the beam swept over the floor surface at a low angle. There were many footprints. I could see Frankie’s sneakers and X’s sensible shoes. I could see ours and at least two others.

  I scanned the whole room again. I said, “We’re in a basement. So...”

  We both said, “It’s the Majestic!” in unison. We were below the old theatre that now shows art movies and hosts the community playhouse.

  “How could dozens of volunteers not know this studio is down here? After all, there are windows to the outside,” said Kathryn.

  I looked up at the windows and then glanced at my watch. It was 7 a.m. but the windows were still black. “Maybe they’re covered up. And... I guess we could be in the back of the building, on the side they just use for storage. Ya know, the Carbondales’ book mentioned that there was a speakeasy in the basement of one of the town theaters. That could explain the tunnel here. Somebody could easily roll a keg or a cartload of bottles down that ramp.”

  I flashed on the footprints again, then followed them past the wall of shelves toward the two narrow doors. As I walked past the large clay vats I noticed a whiff of something that made me hesitate.

  It was then that we heard the voice.

  Chapter 17

  Kathryn and I froze. Human sounds were coming from behind one of the narrow doors. I reached in my holster, drew out my Beretta, and clicked the safety off. I waved Kathryn behind me. She slipped silently back behind the vats.

  I moved closer to the door. It had a pull handle and it was fastened shut with a thick old barrel bolt.

  “Who’s in there?” I called, but I already knew the answer.

  “Maggie?” croaked a dry voice. “It’s me.”

  I slid the bolt over and pulled the door open. Samson Henshaw tipped into the room. He’d been sitting in the door frame at the top of a steep staircase, leaning against the door. He blinked in the light, shading his eyes with a shaky hand. He had a two-days’ growth of beard and he stank.

  When his eyes finally adjusted, he saw Kathryn and flinched back. “Oh, it’s you,” he said, recognizing her. He looked around the room like he’d never seen it before. “Do you have any water?” he rasped.

  Kathryn went to the old sink on the side wall and twisted the handle.

  The pipe gurgled and groaned and suddenly a gush of rusty water flowed out. Samson pulled himself up and dove for it.

  “Wait for the rust to clear,” Kathryn cautioned, and in seconds it did. I didn’t mention to Samson the probability of lead pipes, because the fact that he’d gone without food or water for two days was the priority. He drank and drank until his stomach was distended.

  “How’d you find me?” he finally croaked.

  “More to the point, how the hell did you get in here?”

  “I don’t know. No... wait, yes I do. Oh God I really stink. I’m sorry.”

  “What happened?” I asked in an even voice that calmed him.

  He went on slowly, breathing deeply between every few words, “Right, well, I was waiting outside Gabe’s and I saw Suzanne go in. I’m sure it was her, because you know, I told you, I rang Suzanne’s phone and I could hear it ringing If I Had A Hammer as she went into the yard. So I called you. Geez, it seems like that was years ago.”

  “What happened then?”

  “In just a few minutes, maybe four or five, I could hear Buster barking. She came out, so I rang the phone again. You know, just to be sure it wasn’t a fluke coincidence. It rang again. Same song. This time Suzanne turned her phone off, but I followed her. She had a flashlight, so it was easy to see her from pretty far away.”

  Samson stopped to get another drink, then splashed the water over his face. “She went fast. I worked hard to keep up, but I didn’t want her to see me yet.”

  If Samson was so sure Suzanne loved him then why not just speak to her? Obviously he was afraid of what
he might find out.

  “She hurried out to Washington Street. I could barely keep up. I was just coming around the corner when I saw a light go on in a big SUV or something, so I ducked back. The light went out and I thought she was going to drive off, but she pulled something onto the sidewalk and when she got under a streetlight I could see it was a big hand truck. She rolled it in front of her, north along 10th Street, then up Fen, and then into the cemetery. It was so dark in there I could follow closer. I was almost ready to call out, but then she just disappeared. But see, I heard branches moving and I figured she was hiding in some bushes, like maybe she’d seen me.”

  Samson considered a minute, then said, “I used my phone to see. Inside the bushes there was a vault. Just as I got in there I saw this hole closing up in the floor and Suzanne’s light was gone. When the floor finished closing, this tilted over statue sprang back up. So I just tried pushing on it and the hole opened and I went down. But at the bottom I dropped my phone. The screen went to sleep. It was so dark I couldn’t find it.”

  “But, you could still see the light ahead of you, right?”

  “I didn’t want to lose her. I started to run and she went around the corner. When I made it to the corner, I could see the light going up the stairs. She left the door open so I followed. When I got in here I saw something kind of flickering. I got to that door.” He pointed to the narrow door we’d found him behind. “There was a candle a few steps down. I stepped in and someone hit me on the head.” He touched there and winced.

  Kathryn looked at the back of Samson’s head. “You have quite a bump there.” His hair was sticky and matted from the blood that had come from a cut on his scalp.

  “Did you fall down the stairs?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I guess so. I don’t remember that part so well. But I woke up at the bottom. My knee really hurt and my arm and, well, everything hurt and everything was dark. At first I just couldn’t figure anything out. Then later I thought I might be... blind. I kind of panicked and passed out, I guess.”