Jennifer returned the stare. She realized she was usurping what Monique considered her God-given authority and invading her family turf in a way she had no right to, but she had no choice. “Maybe they aren’t accurate. But if they are, how obvious do you think it would be that those walls are especially thick?”
Monique shook her head. “Those rooms are really large. I’m not sure you would notice. You’d have to be looking for it.”
Jennifer scanned the plans again. “And look below, on the first floor.” She tapped her finger on the paper. “There seems to be a series of storage areas like closets. Six to one that that last one doesn’t open out anywhere.”
“And there’s a similar area in the basement,” Teri pointed out.
“Not to sound stupid, but why do we care?” Leigh Ann asked.
“It’s how they got the body out,” Teri explained, “without having to take it down the stairs.”
“It’s how they got onto the third floor without passing me to pick up the block,” Jennifer added.
“Wouldn’t that be risky?” April asked. “Surely the murderer wouldn’t come right up into the room you were in.”
“Not into Juliet’s room, into the room adjoining. That way they could slip into the hall and come around to my door. I suspect there are openings into all the bedrooms on that side of the house.”
“Hold on,” Monique butted in. “You’re letting your imaginations run away with you—all of you. You write fiction, remember? What works in your books doesn’t necessarily work in real life.”
“Juliet got in and out of that house pretty much at will without her parents knowing it, Eileen as good as told me that. We know Mary sometimes locked her in her room. So you tell me how she did it if not through some passageway. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Malcolm Reed didn’t slip in and out as well. As a matter of fact, that might have been the easiest way. He could even spend the night, and Shelby and Mary would never know it. I bet Malcolm loved that. If they knocked on her door to check on Juliet, there’d she be.”
Monique just stared at her. She obviously didn’t believe a word of it.
“Why did they come back to pick up the block anyway?” Leigh Ann asked, bravely ignoring Monique.
“They didn’t, exactly. They came to make sure I could get out. They wanted me to find the murder scene and to call the police,” Jennifer explained. “But not before they were ready for me to do it.”
“But you were already loose,” Monique pointed out, leaning farther over the plans and studying them. At least she was listening and not rejecting Jennifer’s theory out of hand.
“They didn’t know that,” Jennifer said relieved. She needed Monique’s help. She couldn’t go on to the next step without her. “And they didn’t count on me calling the police on my cell phone.”
“So they picked up the block...” Teri began.
“In hopes I hadn’t realized that was why I couldn’t get the door open. Or that I’d forget or think I was confused when it disappeared. They didn’t know I had a flashlight and had seen it under the door.”
“Wouldn’t that be risky?” April asked.
“Not necessarily. They knew I’d be focused on what was going on below and it was really dark. I never would have looked behind that door. I might have even forgotten about it if Nicholls hadn’t had such a nose for detail. He’s the one who sent someone looking for it.”
“Someone else might forget, but not you,” Leigh Ann insisted.
“These passages are all just theory,” Monique stated.
“No, they aren’t. Leigh Ann and Teri gave us evidence they exist.”
“When?” they asked in unison.
“When you told me the neighbors said that Amy Loggins escaped from the house. She must have somehow discovered a way into the passage, probably tripped it by accident, and slipped through, but she was so confused, she must not have known exactly where she was. She certainly didn’t seem to be able to find her way back.”
“Where do you think it comes out?” Teri asked.
“Somewhere on the property. It shouldn’t be all that difficult to find. The lot isn’t all that huge.”
“Do you think there’s evidence in the passageways?” Leigh Ann asked.
“I’d be surprised if there wasn’t. It must be dark as night in there, and you can bet they’re not wired with electric lights. If there is a blood trail, that’s where it is. We know the police didn’t find one down the main staircase.”
“So why are we looking at these?” April asked. “Why not just tell the police about them?”
“I don’t want to suggest the police go searching for something I’m not absolutely certain they’ll find. At the moment, my credibility is tenuous at best.”
“Why?” Teri seemed totally confused.
“Let’s just say, I’ve presented them with some thoughts to consider. I don’t want any missteps, any more reasons for them to believe I’m the loony mystery writer they may already think I am. What’d you find out at the courthouse?”
“Mary did have power of attorney, starting about two years ago after Shelby got really ill with heart disease,” Teri told them.
“So he trusted her enough for that. Maybe he did let Mary see his will.”
“Shelby, for all his good heart, was not a very forthright man,” Monique told them.
“Old school, huh? Well, he was kidding himself if he thought he could keep anything from Mary,” Leigh Ann threw in.
“Exactly,” Jennifer agreed. “If he kept a copy of the will in the house, hidden or otherwise, I’m sure she wouldn’t rest until she found it.”
“Do you actually think she destroyed that will?” Leigh Ann asked.
Jennifer shrugged. “Why not? She lived with the man for over forty years. I suspect she felt she’d earned that house and everything that went with it. With the animosity that existed between her and Eileen, I wouldn’t be surprised if she expected to be turned out into the street.”
“Eileen would never do that,” Monique insisted.
“I’m sure you’re right, but Mary would have done it to Eileen, and that made it plausible to her. She had to get the estate settled in her favor. With Shelby dying intestate, the entire fortune went to her since Juliet was already dead.”
“April, did you get hold of David Lambert’s legal secretary?”
“Finally. Next time you pass out jobs, I’d like to be present. I had the devil of a time finding her. She admitted it was possible that someone had picked up Mr. Ashton’s will the week that Lambert died. She wasn’t sure what procedure she was to follow, but she said she would have insisted on a request signed by Mr. Ashton. She conceded she wouldn’t have thought to check his signature against the one in the files.”
It was all making sense to her. More and more sense.
“What did you find out from your travel agent?” Jennifer asked Monique.
“You were right. Mary made three weekend hops to the Bahamas during the past six months.”
“Okay. That’s what I needed to know.”
“What about that detective friend of yours?” Monique asked.
“He discovered a substantial deposit made to an account about ten days ago, nothing suspiciously large, about $10,000. The rest must be somewhere else.”
“You mean ‘else’ as in buried in the backyard or in the mattress stuffing?” Leigh Ann asked.
“I mean ‘else’ as in an offshore account.”
“You knew which account it was before you asked Johnny to find out, didn’t you?” Teri asked.
“I had my suspicions, but we can’t give that information to the police. They’ll have to come up with it on their own.”
“Who are you talking about?” Leigh Ann was about to burst at the seams.
“Depositing money into one’s own bank account is not a crime,” Jennifer reminded her. “I’m not about to accuse anybody of anything, not in front of you or anyone else, not until we’ve got the evidence we need
.”
“You’re no fun,” Leigh Ann pouted.
“Sure she is.” April grinned. “Beats bath time at my house. Craig should be mopping up the floor right about now.”
“So how exactly do you plan to get this evidence?” Teri asked.
“I think it’s time the five of us did a little exploring.”
“Oh, Lord. You couldn’t possibly mean…” Leigh Ann began.
“We’ll get shot for trespassing,” Teri said.
“Not if we’ve got permission,” Jennifer told them. She turned to Monique. “I want you to call Eileen and get us access to the Ashton Mansion, all parts of it, inside and out.”
“What do you want me to tell her?”
“Tell her we want to find evidence of her innocence.”
“When do you want to go?”
“Tomorrow night. Say about eight o’clock.”
“Heck. That’s really close to sunset,” Teri pointed out.
“And it’s my kids’ bedtime,” April said.
Jennifer smiled. “Actually, I don’t want Melba—or anybody else for that matter—to know what we’re up to. Wear jeans and bring gloves and flashlights.”
“What for?” Leigh Ann asked.
“I can’t ask the police to believe me when the four of you still have some doubts. We’re going to find out how they did it. We’re going to find those passageways.”
Chapter 34
“It’s almost eight-thirty. Where is Monique?” Leigh Ann hopped nervously back and forth on the balls of her feet. “If she doesn’t show her face in five minutes, I say we all go home.”
“Keep it down,” Teri ordered. “She’ll be here.”
“It’s bad enough that April backed out,” Leigh Ann added. “Little Colette with a fever. Hah! She just doesn’t want to have to explain to Craig when she gets herself arrested for trespassing.”
Jennifer shushed them both and took another look around the back of the mansion. The light was dimming fast. If Monique didn’t get there soon, they could give up all hope of finding the entrance that night.
During the half hour they’d waited, they had discreetly scouted the property. The last thing they needed was to arouse some nosy neighbor’s suspicions. And they hadn’t touched anything. They wouldn’t. Leigh Ann was right. They shouldn’t be there, not until they had Eileen’s permission.
They’d checked for disturbances around the foundation, but none were visible. They’d also walked around the outbuildings. Both were padlocked from the outside. It’d be unlikely that the opening would be inside one of them. Too easy to get trapped. No, it had to be somewhere else, but where?
Behind the house, steps led down ivy-covered banks to a formal rose garden with stone benches and two small fountains. Near the driveway they’d found a storm drain. Nowhere had they found a good place for an entrance, but then Jennifer hadn’t expected they would.
Two figures walked past the side of the house. For a moment, her heart caught in her throat. Then she recognized Eileen and Monique. “You didn’t have to—”
“This I want to see for myself,” Eileen said. She nodded at both Leigh Ann and Teri. Formal introductions hardly seemed necessary under the circumstances. She, too, was dressed in jeans. Jennifer would have sworn she didn’t own a pair.
“I couldn’t convince her to stay home,” Monique explained.
“Fine,” Jennifer agreed. “If it were my freedom on the line, I’d insist on being here, too.”
“So where do we start?” Eileen asked.
“I think we should split up,” Jennifer said. “We’re looking for something stone or concrete, possibly metal. It may be covered with dirt or vegetation, and you can bet it will be well hidden. If it weren’t, you would have found it when you were playing out here as a child.”
Eileen nodded.
“Leigh Ann and Teri, you two check once more around the foundation of the house and the outbuildings. Monique and Eileen, why don’t you look down through the garden, and I’ll check that drain.”
They fanned out, with Teri ducking through the shrubbery and walking against the house, while Leigh Ann followed on the outside and offered suggestions that Teri ignored. Jennifer approached the grate of the drain as Monique and Eileen headed down the steps toward the garden.
The drain looked to be exactly what it was, with a drop that would make it difficult to climb out of. Jennifer got down on her hands and knees and pulled, but the heavy metal shielding the hole wouldn’t budge. No way could someone as small as Juliet have moved it by herself. Abandoning it, she checked the stone patio at the backdoor by tugging at each block, but they all appeared to be cemented in place. If there had once been an opening there, it was now inaccessible.
A whistle startled her, and she turned to see Monique waving her flashlight in the air. She ran to her immediately, and Leigh Ann and Teri came up beside her at the steps down to the garden. Eileen was standing there, holding back a thick weave of ivy. Exposed on the side of the steps was a metal plate. When Monique kicked it with her shoe, it gave off a hollow sound.
“It moves,” she said, pulling it back on rusted hinges.
A narrow entrance gaped at them.
Jennifer, Leigh Ann, and Teri cast their beams downward, illuminating stone steps leading into the darkness. On the second step, against one wall, sat an old-fashioned lantern. But something else made Jennifer’s heart race even faster. She dropped down on one knee, letting the beam from her light shine full force on the steps. Directing her light from step to step, she could see dark round drops, dark red drops of blood.
Chapter 35
The breath nearly left Jennifer’s body. She stared at the gaping hole leading down into the earth, caught in that strange unreality where theory becomes fact, theory she couldn’t quite believe herself. Until she saw the blood.
“Either do it or don’t,” she heard Teri say from behind her.
“I’m not at all sure you should go down there,” Monique warned.
“From what I know of Jennifer,” Eileen said, “I doubt we could keep her out. We’ll wait for you here. If you’re not back in five minutes, we’ll go around to the house.”
Jennifer took a deep breath, stood, and plunged forward. If she waited to think about it, she’d never have the courage to go in.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Jennifer told Leigh Ann and Teri, who crowded behind her. “Whatever you do, don’t step on any of the blood. Nicholls is going to have my head as it is.”
Carefully, using the stone walls as support and stepping as far to the sides as possible, Jennifer lowered herself down the narrow steps, her two friends scrambling after her. When the stairs stopped, they could no longer see the blood.
Now they were in a long underground passage built more than a century and a half ago, the roof so low they had to bend to avoid hitting their heads and the width so narrow they had to proceed single file. It was like entering another world, one that Jennifer wasn’t at all sure she wanted to be in.
The air was cooler, but stagnant, musty, smelling of the earth all around them. Their feet hit against hard-packed dirt, almost like stone. Flashes from their lights revealed supports running along the top and bottom and bracing the sides, overhead beams defying the earth to push its way into this carefully hollowed-out tunnel. Without flashlights, it would have been darker than night.
Poor Amy, lost in that blackness, confused and terrified, like some poor soul in a Poe story. She could almost hear her sobs.
And Juliet and Malcolm. She could almost hear their laughter as they played their youthful game of hide-and-seek. They would have stopped for a quick kiss, or more, before they tumbled out from under the steps, out into the freedom of the night and away from her parents’ watchful eyes.
A hand on Jennifer’s shoulder made her jump. “It’s like we’ve stepped out of the world,” Leigh Ann whispered.
“More like into a tomb,” Teri offered from behind.
This death imagery wa
s not particularly helpful. Jennifer took Leigh Ann’s hand. “Get hold of Teri, too,” she told her. Then she moved forward, too fascinated to go back and too terrified to let herself think about where they actually were. She wished she had a lantern, but she hadn’t dared to touch the one on the steps. A lantern would offer less directed light and let them see what it was really like down there—not that that would necessarily be good.
“You didn’t buy all that about Eileen not knowing about this tunnel, did you?” Teri’s voice sounded strangely distant, dampened by the earth around them.
Jennifer stopped and turned. “Why not?” The beam from her flashlight cast an eerie glow past Leigh Ann and across Teri’s dark features.
“If she killed Mary—and, by the way, she gets my vote—we can’t believe a word she says. She could have knocked Monique over the head by now and be sealing up the entrance this very moment. I read this book once—”
Leigh Ann let go of Jennifer and grabbed the throat of Teri’s T-shirt. “Don’t even think about discussing that down here,” she warned. “If you want to keep me calm, you’ll keep moving. I suffer from claustrophobia, and it’s feeling a little cramped in here about now.”
“It would have been nice if you’d told us about your phobia before we went down the rabbit hole,” Jennifer said.
“Me? She’s the one turning this into the Cask of Amontillado, suggesting we’re going to be walled up in this godforsaken pit in the ground, clawing at each other for the last bit of breath before we—”
Jennifer clamped a hand over Leigh Ann’s mouth. “Not another word. Either of you.” Writers. And to think she was one of them.
Jennifer turned back around. They were a good ways in, but the tunnel stretched forward for what looked like forever. She’d estimated only thirty feet, but that was just to the foundation of the house. If the tunnel came out where she suspected, between where the bedrooms should be on the upper floors, it stretched farther still, about halfway down the side of the house.
Dying to Be Murdererd Page 16
