Mysteries of Holt House - A Mystery

by Marja McGraw

  I received a call from Ruth’s sister who made arrangements to have her body shipped to Ohio for burial. Surprisingly, Ruth had told her sister Marion and I were her closest friends, which saddened me since we didn’t know her that well. I told Marion about our conversation and she didn’t comment. What was there to say?

  Mike and I went swimming, and David and Sharon eventually joined us. We put up a net and played water volley ball. J.T. and Richard got out their tennis rackets again. Richard had trimmed down a bit and appeared healthier, but the exercise hadn’t seemed to help J.T. Josh sat in a lounge chair on the patio and watched us, and Marion spent most of the day in her room. Ted went hiking, immaculate in his hiking shorts and boots. He amazed me. When he returned he looked so fresh that you’d have thought he just stepped out of the shower. Richard and J.T. walked by the pool looking like wilted flowers. Well, maybe not flowers, but I didn’t think cacti wilted.

  At dinner everyone was polite. Richard even quieted down. The calm before another storm? I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.

  Mike spent the evening in the library working on building plans, and David took a portable light outside so he could work on his truck. It still wasn’t running smoothly.

  Lucy, Sharon and I sat in the gazebo with a pitcher of iced tea and cookies. We gabbed for quite a while we “grazed”, which was a word my father used to describe women snacking – what a charmer. We talked about the men in our lives.

  “Did you girls know Joshua is a retired policeman?” Lucy asked, with a note of pride in her voice.

  “No kidding,” I said. “I never would have guessed.”

  Sharon swallowed a bite of cookie. “Me, either.”

  “Yes, he retired a few years back. He was a Lieutenant with the Homicide Division. He’s got some pretty interesting stories.”

  Sharon picked up another cookie. “Son-of-a-gun. If anyone asked me I would have thought he’d been in stocks and bonds or something like that. He strikes me as a businessman of some type. I never would have guessed he was a cop.”

  “I can see him sitting behind a desk in a white collar job,” I said. “You know, an accountant or something like that.”

  “I have to admit, he doesn’t look like your typical police officer,” Lucy said. “In fact, I was surprised about his past myself.”

  “Understandable,” I said, smiling.

  “What does he say about Kelly’s story in connection with Ruth?” Sharon asked. “Does he believe her?”

  I leaned forward, interested in Lucy’s response.

  “He says he believes her, that she was too sure about what she saw to be imagining things. But between the two of us, we can’t think of a reason for anyone to push her out the window. She seemed to have a little crush on Ted, but other than an occasional chat with him she stayed to herself.”

  “I can’t either,” I admitted. “The whole thing doesn’t make sense. Especially when you consider how she kept her distance from everyone. Aside from Marion, Ted, and myself, she rarely spoke to anyone.”

  “It is a mystery.” Sharon set her cookie down and brushed crumbs off her lap.

  Lucy set her glass down on the table. “I think Joshua is trying to figure it out though. He may come up with something.”

  We eventually ran out of things to talk about and sat in silence, enjoying the night air, and munching. We all agreed that chocolate chip cookies were the best snack ever invented.

  I finally stood up and stretched. “Well, I’m going in. I think I’ll write a letter to my parents and get to bed.”

  “I’ll be along shortly,” Lucy said. “I’m going to sit out here for a few more minutes. It’s too nice to go indoors.”

  Sharon picked up her fourth cookie and glanced at Lucy. “I’ll stay with you. Goodnight, Kelly.”

  “Goodnight. See you in the morning. Lucy, don’t let me oversleep.”

  “Right.”

  I hurried off to my room so I could get the letter done and go to bed. I told my parents about Ruth, but I made it sound like an accident. I didn’t want them to start nagging me about moving to Florida again. As much as I loved them, I liked where I was and what I was. I also told them about Mike, making the relationship sound casual.

  After finishing the letter, I put it in an envelope and sealed it, then got ready for bed. I had no trouble falling asleep that night.

  Unfortunately my slumber didn’t last long. I had another nightmare. I saw Ruth leaning out of her window, reaching for a shutter which was just out of reach, the wind blowing it away from her grasp. Then I saw hands come out of the window and rest on her back, huge hands which grew larger as I watched. The hands picked her up and dropped her out the window like a rag doll. She fell slowly, twisting so she faced me. She had a hideous smile on her face, but as I watched I realized it wasn’t a smile. It was a grimace. Her eyes were wide and terrified. I screamed as loud as I could, and over the scream I heard a thunderous sound as she hit the ground.

  My eyes popped open in instant wakefulness, and I clutched my hand over my mouth, afraid I might have actually screamed out loud. I waited, but no one came running, so I figured I’d only screamed in my nightmare. I sat up and found I was breathing hard, a cold sweat covering my body, and I was shaking uncontrollably.

  I climbed out of bed and put on my robe. It was warm in my room, but still I shivered. I sat down in my rocking chair and pulled my robe tighter. The clock showed it was barely midnight. I began rocking back and forth. The next time I glanced at the clock it was almost one o’clock. I hadn’t really been thinking about anything in particular. I just didn’t want to go to bed and dream. By that time I could hardly keep my eyes open so I gave up and returned to bed, thinking I’d toss and turn for the rest of the night. I dropped right off to sleep and didn’t dream again. Sometimes I surprise myself.

  The next morning I woke up feeling good. It was a new day and I’d get a fresh start on things. I’d do my best to put the nightmares and the tragedy behind me. Also, Mike would be staying home so we could explore the passages, which was something I didn’t want to put off any longer.

  Lucy didn’t want any help in the kitchen. She’d gotten up early and the food was just about ready to be served.

  “Did you sleep okay last night?” she asked. “No more nightmares?”

  “No more nightmares,” I lied. I didn’t want her to be concerned about me. She had enough on her mind already. Besides, bad dreams weren’t that big of a deal.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, realizing it was her day off. I should have been doing the work. I’d really let things go lately. I had to get a grip and take care of business.

  “Don’t worry. I’m leaving as soon as breakfast is over. I thought I’d help out this one time.”

  “Don’t wait until after breakfast to leave. You get out of here when Josh is ready. I can take care of things.”

  “Well, actually I’m not all that dedicated. Since I was hungry, I figured I might as well cook everything up at once and get the boarders out of the way for you.”

  “You’re a plum. Got any special plans for today?”

  “Joshua and I are taking Marion to the Senior Citizens Center in town. She wants to check it out. We’ll bring her back out here around three o’clock, and then Joshua and I are going back into town to live it up. Of course, she can drive herself, but we wanted to look at it, too.”

  “Aren’t you a little young for a senior center?”

  “Not really. By the way, Mike is still here. Shouldn’t he have left for work?” She was fishing.

  “He’s going to help me take care of something. I’ll tell you all about it later.” I didn’t want to tell her about the passages yet.

  “Uh huh,” she said, sounding suspicious.

  She didn’t pump me for more information like I thought she would, so perhaps she was concentrating on something else, or someone else, like Josh. It might actually be a good idea if he kept her distracted.

  I
walked out to the dining room where I found Mike waiting for me. “I was afraid you might forget about today.”

  “How could I forget a secret passage?” He’d just finished his breakfast and was pushing his plate away.

  “True. At any rate, after all the boarders are gone we can check it out. I’m really curious to see where it leads, and I hope we can find something that will tell us who’s been using it.”

  “So do I. I don’t like the idea of someone roaming around the house through a secret passage. I’d be willing to lay odds it will at least lead to your room and Sharon’s.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “And,” he continued, “after Ruth’s death I think it’s something we’d better take care of right away. There’s no telling if there’s a connection or not, but I’d rather be safe and know what’s going on.”

  “Yeah, me, too.”

  One by one all the boarders came down for breakfast. After eating they each left for their jobs. When Richard came down he made a crack about Mike not going to work and gave me a probing look. I ignored him and Mike just shrugged it off like it was none of Richard’s business, which it wasn’t.

  When the working boarders were all gone for the day, Lucy told me she, Josh and Marion were leaving for town. “Do you want me to pick anything up for you while we’re in town? It’s no problem to stop at the store.”

  “Thanks, but no. I think we’re pretty well stocked up on things right now. You just go and have a good time,” I replied.

  “See you later then.” She waved and walked to the front door to meet Josh and Marion.

  “Let me clean up the breakfast mess and we can get started,” I said, turning to Mike. “It’ll only take few minutes.”

  “I’ll help you.” He started picking up dirty dishes and carrying them to the kitchen.

  We cleaned up and put the leftover food away, discussing the passages while we worked. I glanced out the window and saw David pushing the lawn mower across the driveway, preparing to mow the lawn.

  “Did Sharon ever look behind her dresser?” Mike asked. “Did she find a door?”

  “This is embarrassing, but I forgot to ask her,” I said sheepishly. “She hasn’t said anything though. I think she would have mentioned it if she’d checked.”

  “We can ask her tonight,” Mike said. “You ready?”

  I dried my hands on a towel and hung it over the edge of the sink to dry. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  We climbed the stairs without talking, and after reaching Mike’s room we immediately moved the dresser away from the wall. Mike lit the oil lamp and set it on the floor next to the door. This time he pushed on the middle of the door instead of punching it. It opened easily. He picked up the lamp and we entered the narrow opening in the wall.

  We spoke out loud instead of whispering since no one was home. There was a slight echo which added to the eerie feeling I already had.

  “I’m sure curious about these passages. You know, when I bought this place nothing was mentioned about any of this, so I really doubt that anyone knew the passages existed.”

  Mike looked around, taking in the walls and flooring. “They probably didn’t. Sometime over the years the information was either lost or forgotten, or maybe it was never mentioned on paper. Obviously it was meant to be a secret.”

  I frowned. “Well, there’s certainly one other person who knows about this. Now let’s see if we can figure out who that someone is.”

  After only a short distance the passage turned. As we walked around the corner I almost knocked Mike down. He’d stopped suddenly and I walked right into him. I should have been watching where I was going but instead I was busy looking around and behind myself.

  “Hold it,” he whispered. “There’s a short flight of stairs here.”

  “Stairs?”

  “Yeah, and you almost pushed me down them.”

  “Sorry.”

  We climbed down the stairs and the passage continued. Another set of steps led upward again. It was a fairly narrow passage and we walked single file. I thought I’d let Mike lead the way – not that I’m a chicken – but it seemed like the prudent thing to do.

  Mike stopped and glanced behind us before studying what was in front of us. “I see what’s happening. When the steps lead up, you come to a bedroom. When they go down, the passage is running beneath the bedroom windows. That way everything would look normal from both the inside of the house and from outside.”

  “Makes sense to me,” I said, uncertainly, trying to take in the information.

  We kept walking, and every time we climbed up the stairs we found a door leading to a room. We could see by scuff marks that every room had been entered at some time. The bathrooms were shallower than the bedrooms and we discovered that behind each bathroom, instead of empty space, there was a very small room. We entered each of the rooms to see if we could find anything, but they were all empty, very dusty and dirty. There were spider webs in the corners of the rooms, and as the light from the oil lamp permeated the empty space we heard faint scurrying noises. Mice? Or maybe rats. They wouldn’t dare come into my house – I hoped. Anyway, it was obvious that no one had been in the small rooms anytime recently.

  We walked all the way around the passage, ending up outside the room across from Mike’s, the one belonging to Richard English. There we found two flights of stairs, one leading to the third floor, and one leading to the main floor.

  “Mike, I really want to look at both floors. It’s the only way we’ll have any chance at finding out who knows these passages exist.”

  He nodded. “We’ve still got a few hours before anyone will be back, so there shouldn’t be any problem. By the way, did you happen to tell Sharon not to mention the passages?”

  “I didn’t have to. When we were in the pool she said she didn’t think we ought to let anyone know.”

  “Good. She’s a smart lady. I like Sharon.”

  “She thinks you’re okay, too.”

  Mike studied the two sets of stairs. “Hmm. Do you want to go up to the third floor while I go check out the first floor?”

  “No way, absolutely not, no! I go where you go. Together. There’s safety in numbers. Understand?”

  “I think you’ve made yourself perfectly clear.” He chuckled. “But there’s no one here.”

  “You never know. With David running the lawn mower we wouldn’t hear anyone come in. In fact, from in here we probably couldn’t hear anything anyway.”

  “Come on, Miss Chicken. We’ll take a look downstairs first and save the third floor for last. By the way, quit following me quite so close. You keep stepping on my heel.”

  “Sorry.”

  So we went downstairs. The passage led to Sharon’s and my rooms, but for some unknown reason it didn’t lead to the other two rooms. It just dead ended. Again, there was a small room behind the bathroom. Unlike the rooms on the second floor, we could see that someone had been there. An apple core turned brown, a pencil and some paper rested on a small table. There was also a flashlight. There was little dust – it looked like someone had cleaned up – so we knew someone had been there recently. And the apple core wasn’t completely dried out, just brown.

  “For whatever it’s worth, at least now we know where the notes were written,” Mike said.

  “Yeah. I have a feeling it’s a good thing I saw the seams in the wall. This is too weird. Let’s go see what’s on the third floor.” My stomach lurched and I had to make myself calm down.

  Off we went again, this time upward. All of the stairs leading from one floor to another were in the front of the house, on the same side as the patio and pool. What we called the back door of the house, leading from the kitchen to the yard and pool, was really on the side of the house. As we followed the passages, the layout of the house was very important to me. I felt as though it should be providing me with a clue as to who might be using this secret part of the house, but nothing came to me.


  The third floor was set up exactly the same as the second floor. We traveled all the way through the passage, and when we reached the last small room we found a surprise. There was another small table, and sitting on top of it was a shoe box.

  “Mike, look.” I pointed at the box.

  “I see it.” He stepped over and removed the lid. “Come here. Are these the things that disappeared from your room?”

  I peered into the box. With only the light from the oil lamp to see by, I got a chill as I picked up each item; a tube of lipstick, which I was sure belonged to Sharon, my hair brush, and the letter sent to Sharon by her parents.

  “These are the things that were taken from our rooms.” I held up Sharon’s hand mirror and a small book. “This is Sharon’s address book, too. It was the last thing that disappeared from her room.”

  “What about this?” Mike stooped down and picked something up from the floor.

  “That’s my shoe.” I took it from him with shaking hands. “Oh, no! My panty hose are stuffed into the toe of the shoe. That means someone was going through my dresser drawers, because I haven’t worn panty hose since I moved in here.”

  There was a chair pushed under the table. I pulled it out and sat down, ready to see what else was in the box. I looked up at Mike, and he looked puzzled.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “This may sound funny, but I think I recognize that shoe box. It’s the one my new work boots came in. I thought I threw it in the trash.”

  “You probably did. This guy’ll take anything, won’t he?” I laughed nervously.

  “Mike!” I sucked in my breath and held up a short chain with a small gold heart hanging from it. “This necklace belonged to Ruth Bell. She once told me it belonged to her mother. She said it was the only reminder she had of her. She said her mom died when she was sixteen. She never knew her father. I think being on her own so early had a lot to do with why she was so withdrawn. According to Marion, Ruth was overprotected until her mother became ill. After that she was forced to take care of things, including her younger sister. She didn’t know how to handle the responsibility.”