“Close friend of his, were you?”
“Honey, you don’t know the half of it.”
Keeping their flashlights aimed low, they left the street and angled back through the woods toward the house in which Sapphire Vine had once lived. Now that they were out of the Jeep and into the night air, they walked in silence. When they did talk, they did so in low whispers.
The woods were overgrown and tricky to traverse. Maggie jumped noisily more than once as she was spooked by night creatures, and almost tripped a couple of times, cursing angrily under her breath. But they picked their way through without too much trouble and soon emerged from the woods, pausing at the edge of Sapphire’s backyard.
Candy reached back inside the bag she carried and handed something to Maggie. “Here, you’ll need these.”
Maggie shined her flashlight on the objects she had been handed. “Isotoner gloves?”
“It’s all I had. We can’t leave fingerprints.”
“But aren’t we supposed to wear those little latex gloves like they have in hospitals or at the deli counter? You know, like when they slice your cheese for you?” She held out an imaginary slice, as if for a customer. “‘How’s this?’” she mimicked. “And what about those people who say, ‘Oh, can I have that a hundredth of an inch thinner’? I mean, come on — it’s a piece of cheese! Get a life!”
“Shh! Get your Isotoners on,” Candy said, pulling her friend along by the arm. “We’re going in.”
As they walked across the yard toward the back of the house, Candy slipped on a pair of lavender Polartec winter gloves — the only other ones she had except for a few pairs of grimy old gardening gloves, which were totally inappropriate for this kind of delicate operation. Candy was just snugging her fingers into them when she looked up — and stopped dead in her tracks. Maggie, who was following behind, plowed into her.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Maggie whispered harshly.
Candy pointed up at the house. “Look there.”
Maggie raised her eyes, following Candy’s finger.
A dim light showed through a small window nestled into the very highest peak of the house’s gabled roof.
“You think someone’s home?” Maggie whispered, sounding worried.
Candy shook her head. “No one lives here anymore — Sapphire probably just left a night light on or something like that. Come on.”
“But what if someone’s moved in and...”
“Shh! Wait here.”
“Where are you going?” Maggie whispered, but Candy had already moved away. She disappeared into the shadows at the back of the house. Maggie heard her jiggle the knob on the back door.
“It’s locked. And it’s got yellow police tape across it,” came Candy’s faint whisper. “I’m checking around the side. Be right back.”
As Candy disappeared into the night, Maggie waited nervously. Time seemed to drag on. She tapped her feet, looked up at the stars, and bit her lip. “Candy, you there?” she finally whispered into the shadows.
No answer. “Candy?”
She was just about to investigate when a dark shape loomed from around the other side of the house and approached her at a fast pace.
“Halt! Who goes there!” Maggie squeaked.
“Shh! It’s just me.”
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for a way in, silly. All the windows are locked.”
“Well there’s a surprise. What are we going to do now?”
“I’ll guess I’ll have to put the break into breaking and entering. I need a big rock or a brick.”
“Why? What are you gonna do?”
“Break a window. Got any other bright ideas?”
“How about looking for a spare key? Everyone leaves a spare key around somewhere outside, right?”
“Good idea. I’m glad I brought you along. Let’s see what we can find.”
It took some searching, but Maggie finally located a key hidden on top of one of the back window frames. “Here it is!”
“You’re a genius! We’re in business.”
Candy slipped the key in the lock, turned the knob, and pushed open the door. “Here, put this back where you found it,” she said, handing the key to Maggie. Then she ducked under the police tape.
Maggie hid the key in its secret place, then rejoined Candy.
They were in.
The door opened onto a long dark hall. Maggie closed the door behind them as they shone their lights around. A door to the left led to the kitchen. On the right was a small bathroom and a storage space under the staircase. Straight ahead was what looked like the living room.
Everything seemed to be in disarray — probably from the police search of the house, Candy guessed.
“Where do you think she bought it?” Maggie asked quietly, coming up behind Candy.
“What?”
“Where do you think Sapphire was when she was — you know — killed?”
“Oh.” Candy took a few tentative steps forward and peered into the living room. She pointed to a spot on the living room floor marked in an X with masking tape, which seemed to glow in the beam of her flashlight. “There.”
Maggie made a face. “Yuck. Let’s go this way.” She angled off to her left, into the kitchen, but Candy hesitated in the back hall. “Do you suppose we should wipe our shoes or something?” she asked.
“Why would we want to do that?” came Maggie’s harshly whispered response.
“Well, mine are kinda muddy from the woods. The police can’t match shoe prints, can they?”
Maggie’s face appeared back around the door frame. “I never thought of that.”
“Can they?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
Candy thought a moment. “Guess we’d better take off our shoes then. We can leave them here by the back door.”
“Good idea.”
Their shoes off and carefully set on the back-door mat, the two of them began to explore the house in their stocking feet. They started in the kitchen. As carefully and quietly as possible, Candy checked all the cupboards and opened all the drawers. While Maggie cooed with pleasure over the Betty Boop cookie jar and Sapphire’s collection of whimsical salt and pepper shakers, Candy searched through a small stack of unpaid bills on the breakfast table. She even poked into the trash can but found nothing.
Moving quietly and methodically, they next checked a small laundry room attached to the kitchen, the downstairs bathroom, and the dining room. Then, respectfully, they walked into the living room, careful to stay to the outer edges, avoiding the center of the room, where Sapphire Vine had died a violent death after stopping the business end of a hammer with her head.
Maggie looked around with a mixture of fascination and repugnance. “I love the fact that we’re here,” she whispered, unable to take her eyes off the masking-tape X on the floor, “but you have to admit this is kind of creepy. I didn’t think it would be so tomblike. It’s like a dead person lives here.”
“A dead person did live here, but she’s gone now, so she won’t mind if we nose around a little.”
“You sure about that?”
“Well, no, not really.”
Maggie tilted her head pleasantly. “Okay, that’s good enough for me. Let’s get back to business.”
Tiptoeing about cautiously, they shined their flashlights into various nooks and crannies, checking the room. It was actually tastefully decorated, they were surprised to discover, with a fairly new rust-colored furniture set, Mission-style coffee and end tables, a well-stuffed bookshelf, a comfortable-looking rocking chair, a large TV, and an upright piano. There were only small touches that indicated Sapphire Vine had once lived here — a collection of cat and angel porcelain figurines arranged lovingly on a bookshelf, an embroidered pillow on the sofa that read, “The World’s Gutsiest Gal.”
Candy and Maggie examined these items curiously, then moved on to the piano. A dozen or so old family photos in antique silver frames were lined up along
its top. “I wonder why Sapphire never told us anything about her family,” Maggie said softly.
“Maybe because we never asked.”
“Good point. Look, here’s a photo of her when she was younger — about twenty years old or so, I’d say. Handsome guy with her.”
Candy studied it, focusing in on the innocent young couple, who in the photo appeared to be extremely happy. Sapphire’s hair was longer, her face more cherubic, and she looked heavier than she had in more recent days. The young man she stood next to was tall and lean with dark curly hair. He had an easy smile and wore an old gray sweatshirt with the letters USM on it in faded blue. “I wonder what happened to him.”
Maggie shook her head. “She probably chased him away with her sharp wit.”
“Yeah, sure.”
When they found nothing else of interest on the first floor, they moved to the second. There they found another bathroom and three bedrooms, two of which were furnished and one empty except for some boxes, an ancient weight-lifting set, some old pieces of furniture, and assorted piles of clothes and books stacked in haphazard piles.
Candy pointed to the furnished bedrooms. “You take the one on the right, I’ll take the other. Check everything.”
Maggie did as instructed. She searched through dresser drawers, the nightstand drawer, an oak hope chest, even the storage boxes under the bed.
“Nothing!” she called out.
Candy walked back out of the other bedroom. “Nothing in there either. She must keep her papers around here somewhere. There’s got to be a workspace or something — someplace where she writes and keeps her files.”
“Maybe in the basement,” Maggie suggested.
“Maybe.” Candy shined her light around. She turned a complete circle, then walked back in and checked all the bedrooms. She seemed to be searching for something.
“What’s wrong?” Maggie hissed.
Candy shook her head. “Where are the stairs to the top floor?”
“The what?”
“The top floor. Remember that light we saw in the window? Well, there’s no light on here. There must be another floor above this one. Look around for a set of stairs.”
“It’s probably right here,” Maggie said, motioning to a door that led to the space over the lower staircase. But when she opened the door, she found that it was only a closet, stuffed with blankets, a vacuum cleaner, old shoes, and more boxes. “Nope, that’s not it.”
“Hmm. There must be a way to get to the top level — maybe in a closet or behind a closed door. Let’s look.”
So they drifted off, walking the floor, exploring the bedrooms again, searching everywhere. But they found nothing.
“That’s so weird,” Candy said as they met back in the hallway. “I know I saw a light in that top window, but how do we get up there?”
“Maybe there’s a secret door,” Maggie guessed.
“Hmm. Could be. This place must be a hundred years old, at least. It’s possible they could have put a secret door or panel someplace. Let’s look again, more carefully this time.”
“Okay. You take that side of the hallway, and I’ll look over here.”
The minutes passed as they each searched a room, which wasn’t easy, since they had only their flashlights to see by. Candy desperately wanted to flick on an overhead light but knew that was taboo. She rapped on the walls with her knuckles, listening for any hollow sound. But then she realized that it all sounded the same to her. Even if she found a secret door, she didn’t know what it would sound like.
She decided to check the closet more carefully. She guessed that she was in the spare bedroom, since it was sparsely decorated, and Sapphire’s winter clothes were hanging from the bar in the closet. The shelf above was filled with boxes.
Then she looked again, shining the light around. The shelf was only half-full, she saw now. And the far end of the shelf was missing.
Curious, Candy walked to that end of the closet and shined her light up along the wall. That’s when she noticed a narrow wooden ladder leaned up against the back wall of the closet. Her eyes followed the ladder up to the ceiling.
Then she saw it — a trap door.
“Found it!” she called out as loudly as she dared.
She heard footsteps approaching at a run. “What? Let me see!”
“Right there. Look.”
Maggie shone her light up with Candy’s. “Ooh, yes, that’s it! A trap door. How clever! I bet the police didn’t see that! Who’s going up first?”
“I don’t suppose you want to volunteer?”
Maggie gave her a look. “Just be careful. I’ll watch your back.”
“Thanks. That makes me feel so much better. Here, hold this.”
Candy passed her flashlight and the tote bag to Maggie, then grabbed on to one of the ladder’s rungs. She put a foot on a lower rug, testing it carefully to make sure it would hold her weight, then hoisted herself up slowly, a rung at a time, until she was high enough to reach the trap door in the ceiling. Holding onto the ladder with one hand, she pushed up on the trap door with the other. It gave way easily, opening a few inches with a low creak.
“I’m going up,” she called back down in a loud whisper. “Pass the flashlight to me when I get up there.”
“Roger that,” Maggie called efficiently.
Candy pushed the trap door all the way open and saw a faint glow of light filtering down into the closet. Grabbing the wood frame of the opening, she pulled herself up and into the room above.
Twenty-Three
She sat for a moment on the edge with her legs dangling down and looked around warily. But it was just as she expected — a cozy attic hideaway that had been Sapphire’s secret retreat.
Because of the size of the trap door, it must have been difficult to get big pieces of furniture up here, so what Candy saw was a makeshift arrangement. A narrow folding table, pushed into one corner, made for a desk. The room also contained a trio of fold-up-style director’s chairs, a small wicker chair, several cinder-block-and-board shelves lined with books, a portable TV set on top of a green plastic crate, a CD player/radio on the floor beside it, a few tall boxes that had been turned upside down to serve as end tables, and — strangely enough — a thin twin-sized mattress laid on the floor along one wall, with a pillow and blankets scattered across it.
“Let me see, let me see!” Maggie exclaimed excitedly as she came up the ladder behind Candy, handing up the tote bag and flashlight. “What have you found?”
“It’s Sapphire’s secret lair.”
“The center of the spider’s nest. This just keeps getting better and better.”
Candy swung her legs up underneath her, rose — and immediately bumped her head on the sloped ceiling. They were at the very top of the house, and though the ceiling was high enough in the center of the room that she could stand, it sloped down sharply at the sides.
There was a small window that looked out over the backyard, dark now except for a small patch faintly illuminated far below. An antique floor lamp with a low-wattage bulb had been left on; that had been the light they had seen from the yard.
Candy crossed to the folding table that served as a desk. It was a primitive setup, but everything Sapphire had needed appeared to be here. On the table was a fairly new notebook computer. Candy spotted a phone line that ran down through a crude hole cut in a corner of the floor, probably used for an Internet connection, though she saw it was now unplugged; Sapphire had apparently upgraded to wireless. The desktop had been kept nice and neat, as expected of Sapphire. Papers, files, and magazines were carefully organized in a variety of plastic desktop trays and sorters. Sharpened pencils and pastel-colored pens were stored in old coffee cups that served as pencil holders. Another address book — this one with a glossy pink cover decorated with stickers of ice cream cones and flowers — sat to one side of the computer. A Rolodex nearby looked as though it had been frequently used and regularly updated. The handset of a wireless phone sat beside
the address book.
No one could ever say Sapphire had been a slouch when it came to organization.
A two-drawer cardboard file cabinet — one of those cheapie jobs you could buy at an office supply store — sat to one side of the desk. Slipping off her Polartec gloves and setting them down on the floor with the tote bag and flashlight, Candy dropped into the chair behind Sapphire’s desk and gingerly pulled open the file cabinet’s top drawer. It was heavy and stuffed full, just as she suspected. She started fingering her way back through the files.
“Would you look at this?” Maggie asked from the other side of the room. She had wasted no time in exploring the surroundings.
Candy turned and looked up. Maggie held a photo album open in her hands. She was paging through it. “There are pictures of her in here going back to when she was a baby. And look at this.” She closed the album and held it out so Candy could see it.
Along the bottom right corner of the album cover, in gold block letters, was the inscription Susan Jane Vincent.
Candy’s brows knit together. “Who’s Susan Jane Vincent?”
“Don’t you get it?” Maggie’s eyes were huge. “It’s Sapphire! That must be her real name! She must have changed it somewhere along the line.”
“Well I’ll be damned.”
“You didn’t think Sapphire Vine was her real name, did you? I always suspected she must have changed it at some point, maybe to hide a sordid past. And here’s the proof.”
“Susan Jane Vincent, huh? So she’s just an ordinary plain Jane after all.”
“I wonder if the police know about this,” Maggie said absently to herself as she paged through the album.
Candy looked around the room with fresh eyes. “They might have discovered her real name by now, but my guess is they haven’t found this place yet. They must have missed it when they searched the house.”
Maggie set the album aside and looked over at Candy. “Are we going to tell them?”
Candy shrugged. “I don’t know yet. Keep looking. See what else you can find.”
“Right, Chief!” Almost immediately Maggie chimed up again. “Here’s something.” She reached toward a book on a narrow shelf, pulling it out and holding it up, just as she had with the album.
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