by Shéa MacLeod
“Maybe the windows leak. It’s an old building,” I suggested. “Or the flue in the fireplace could be open.”
She shook her head, a cheeky grin splitting her face. “Nope. It was coming from over here.” She patted the row of floor to ceiling bookshelves that had been built into one wall of the office. There were three of them about eight feet tall and four feet wide. On either side of the shelves were a pair of sconces with milky, globe shaped glass. “Check it out.”
Curious, I joined her at the bookshelves. “I can’t feel anything.”
“Trust me, it’s there.”
I licked my finger and held it up to the joint between two of the shelves. Sure enough, I could feel a faint, chill breeze coming from between the shelves. “Crimeny! You’re right.”
Her smile grew smug. “Watch this.” She reached up, grabbed one of the sconces, and gave it a twist. The middle shelf popped open about an inch or two. The hinges made a loud squeal as Jez grabbed the edge and swung it open. “Welcome to Wytham Manor’s secret passage.”
Chapter 17
Exploratory Mission
“HAVE YOU EXPLORED IT yet?” I asked, peering into the secret passage, my heart thudding with excitement.
“A little,” Jez said.
There was just enough light to see that what lay beyond the bookshelves was a narrow passage leading downward. The pool of light illuminated the top of what appeared to be a staircase that turned to the right. Jez pulled out her phone and switched on its flashlight. As she shone it around, I could see the bare brick and timber walls and unfinished plank floors. Jez had made footprints in the thick dust on the steps, but otherwise it looked like it hadn’t been disturbed in decades. Heavy cobwebs draped the corners and I shuddered thinking of how many spiders must be running around in there.
It was my first secret passage and excitement shimmered inside me like champagne bubbles. I wanted those stairs to lead to a hidden treasure room. Or out to a beach where pirates smuggled their loot. Not that we were anywhere near a beach.
“I went as far as the bottom of the stairs, but...” she trailed off, a slight blush staining her pale cheeks, partially obscuring her freckles.
“But what?”
“I was nervous,” she admitted. “It’s silly, me being a ghost hunter and all, but I started thinking, what if I got locked in or something? My cell phone doesn’t work inside the passage. The walls are too thick. No one would know I was in here.”
“That’s smart, actually. At least if I’m with you, you won’t die alone.”
“Thanks. That’s encouraging,” she said drily.
I followed her through the narrow, cobwebby doorway and onto the stairs. The walls were so close, I kept snagging the sleeves of my cobalt blue sweater on the rough bricks. Our feet sent up little poufs of dust with each step and the treads creaked ominously beneath our weight.
At the end of the stairwell, the passage stretched straight on before ending in another set of steps, this time going up.
At the top of the stairs there was a short turn to the right before the hall dead ended into a wall covered in peeling, floral wallpaper. We both stared at it.
“Well, bugger,” Jez said. “I was hoping there’d be another door or something.”
I frowned. “The other walls are brick.”
“So?”
“So, why’s this one covered in flowers? I’m betting this is the door.”
Jez’s eyes lit up. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.”
We spent several minutes poking and prodding and pushing on the wall to no avail. I finally took a break. “There’s got to be an easier way.” A thought occurred. “I know, why don’t we figure out where the passage comes out? Maybe we can open it from the other side.”
“Good idea!” Jez grinned. “How do we do that?”
“By following it from up top,” I said. “You okay if I leave you for a minute?”
She didn’t look okay, but she swallowed and said, “Sure.” For a ghost hunter, she was kind of a scaredy cat.
I hurried back the way we’d come, counting each step to make sure I could duplicate my movements. I let myself into Rupert’s office. It was still empty and I wondered where he was. I wanted to question him about his lack of alibi and lying about seeing Martin, but right now I’d other fish to fry.
On the other side of the shelves, I paused, trying to visualize the passage we’d taken. The stairs had led to the right. So, I trailed along the bookcase to the right which led me...to the door of Rupert’s office. I stopped. The passage had continued straight ahead, which would take me into the lobby. With a shrugged I crossed the lobby, counting my steps as I had on the trip back. They brought me to within a couple feet of a wall. I frowned. What was on the other side of that wall?
I turned right, just as the passage had, before stumbling to a halt. There was only one room that the passage could possibly lead to. Holy fish sticks.
JEZ BLINKED AS I SWUNG open the secret passage. “Took you long enough. What—.” And then she stopped as she realized where she stood. She gazed around in wonder as she stepped out of the passage. “But this is the library.”
I grinned. “Exactly.”
Once I’d figured it out, things had become very clear. And it had been easy enough to find the passage on the other side. The matching sconces were a dead giveaway, pardon the pun.
“Have a look in the passage,” I suggested. “What do you see?”
She turned to look. “I don’t know. Same as the other side, I guess. Brick walls and whatnot.”
“Maybe I should ask, what don’t you see?”
She frowned. “I’m sorry, I don’t get it.”
“Dust! The entire passageway is covered in dust except for this landing.” I stepped in and shone my phone’s flashlight on the floor. “See. It’s like something heavy was dragged through the dust leaving a clean spot.”
Jez’s eyes widened. “You mean...? Wait, what do you mean?”
“I’ve had my suspicions, but now I’m sure. Whoever strangled Jeffrey Blodgett didn’t want his body found right away. So, they dragged him in here after killing him. Later, they pulled him back out and propped him in that chair so he could be found. When James Carsley found him, he thought Blodgett was still alive and stabbed him with the letter opener.”
“That’s crazy. But it makes sense. How do we figure out who did it?”
“Obviously it had to be someone who knew the house well enough to know there’s a secret passage,” I said.
“The only ones I know would be Rupert and Bill. They run the place, after all. Everyone else is just a visitor and that passage hasn’t been used in years.” Jez frowned. “I mean, somebody could have stumbled on it like I did.”
I thought about that, but it felt wrong. “Unlikely. I’m guessing they knew it was here. The murder may have been spur of the moment—manual strangulations usually are impulsive—but the killer would have had to hide the body fast. There were literally only a few moments between James leaving the library and the professor arriving. There would have been no time to accidentally stumble on a secret hiding place.”
“So, who do we start with first?” Jez asked. “Rupert or Bill?”
“What are you ladies doing in here?”
We both whirled to find Rupert himself standing in the doorway to the library exuding as much indignation as his rolly poly frame could muster. He looked like an angry elf.
“Rupert. Just the man I wanted to see.” I gave him my most charming smile, hoping to distract him from the fact we’d entered a crime scene.
He drew himself up to his full five foot two. “You’re not supposed to be in here. I must report this to the colonel immediately.”
Okay, so charm wasn’t going to work. I went on the offensive. “You go right ahead, Rupert. And while you’re at it, you can explain to him why you murdered Jeffrey Blodgett.”
“What?” He backed away from me as if I’d gone rabid, his face sweaty and
pale. “I did no such thing! I never met the man until he checked in here. Why would I kill him?”
“Who else could it be?” I asked, stalking toward him with my scariest expression firmly in place. I’d perfected it years ago when working with difficult clients who refused to listen to me when it came to their accounting. “After Blodgett was murdered, someone stuffed him in the secret passage.”
“What secret passage?” Rupert whimpered.
“That secret passage,” Jez said, pointing behind us to the bookshelf that stood open.
“You had to have known it was here,” I continued. “Who else but the manager of the inn would know about a secret passage?”
“B-but I didn’t. I swear, I had no idea.” Rupert was literally shaking now. “No one ever told me.”
“But you could have stumbled on it while exploring the place,” Jez said matter-of-factly.
“I’m not exactly the exploring type,” he pointed out.
Which, from what I’d seen of Rupert, was absolutely true. Besides which, I couldn’t imagine short, round Rupert hauling the much taller and heavier Blodgett into the narrow landing. It just didn’t compute. And, like he said, what would be his motive? I decided to take another tack.
“Okay, so if you didn’t kill Blodgett and stuff him in the stairwell, why did you lie?”
Rupert swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing wildly. “Um, what do you mean?”
I smiled grimly. “You claimed you were in your office at the time of Blodgett’s death and that you’d seen Martin wandering around in the garden.”
“It’s true. I was in my office.”
“But it’s not true,” Jez said.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Rupert wailed.
“You couldn’t have seen Martin in the garden because Martin was in bed with Lavender Wu,” Jez said triumphantly.
“Clearly you lied about seeing Martin,” I said. “Did you lie about being in your office? Maybe you were in the library killing Blodgett.”
“No! No! I was in my office like I said, I was just...” he trailed off.
“You better spill it,” I snapped. “Because from where I stand, your lies only make you look guilty. Why would you lie about seeing Martin?”
“Because I need an alibi,” Rupert wailed. “I didn’t have one and when Martin said he was in the garden, I figured I was safe. I’d just say I saw him.”
“Where were you really?” I demanded.
He seemed to shrink in on himself. “You can’t tell Bill, okay?”
I frowned. “Why not?”
“Because I promised I’d stop.”
Jez and I exchanged glances. I couldn’t imagine what awful thing he could have been doing that he needed to lie about it. “What? Were you watching porn or something?”
“No. Nothing like that.” He sank into a chair by the library door. “I used to have a drinking problem, you see. In fact, Bill and I broke up over it for a while. When we got back together, I promised I’d quit for good. And I had. But then there was the storm, and stress...” he sighed and laid his head back on the chair. “It was more than I could handle. I figured one sip now and then wouldn’t hurt. So, I keep a bottle locked in my desk drawer. And that’s what I was doing when Blodgett was killed.”
It was my turn to sink into a chair. He’d been drinking in secret and he’d only lied so his boyfriend didn’t find out and dump him again. I let out a groan of frustration. There went my main suspect.
Chapter 18
Spirits of the Dead
“LET’S DO A SÉANCE.”
Lucas, Colonel Frampton, and I stared at Jez like she’d just sprouted a second head. A green one. With tentacles.
We were all having lunch in the hotel bar. Bill had whipped up sandwiches and scones. Over the meal, Jez and I had given Lucas and the colonel a run-down on our latest discovery. The colonel had not been pleased about our invasion of the crime scene, but the discovery of the secret passage had piqued his interest.
“We can get everyone together,” Jez continued. “See if we can contact Blodgett and Marilyn. Ask them who killed them. I mean, don’t you think that would be interesting? And since they were killed here, the experts claim their spirits should still linger.”
“My dear girl,” the colonel said, patting his moustache with a napkin, “we are in the midst of a murder investigation. We do not need to waste our time in such trivial pursuits.”
“I disagree,” I said.
“Of course you would,” he said with a patronizing air which set my hackles on end.
Lucas laid his hand on my leg, trying to prevent the eruption building inside me. Apparently, clenching my fists is a sign of bad things to come.
“I agree with Viola,” he said, giving me a sideways glance that begged me to shut up. “It will get everyone’s minds off things. And, if we do it right...”
The colonel leaned forward. “Yes?”
Lucas grinned. “We might catch ourselves a killer.”
The colonel tugged at his moustache. “Intriguing. Do go on.”
“Over to you, Jez,” Lucas said graciously.
“Well, it’s easy enough, I guess. We do the usual thing. Get everyone around the table and ask the ghosts of the murder victims to put in an appearance. If they don’t come...”
I rolled my eyes.
“...then I can step in,” Jez continued as if she hadn’t seen me. “Pretend to channel Marilyn’s ghost, for instance. Say that I know who the killer is and so on.”
“And that will hopefully flush him or her out,” I said.
We discussed the various technical aspects of the séance, such as location, candles vs. lamps, and whether or not there should be music. Once we set a time, we all scattered to issue invitations to the other guests and to rope Bill and Rupert into helping us set up. Jez grabbed my arm as I got up from the table.
“Here’s the thing,” Jez said, glancing around to make sure the men were out of ear shot. “I’ve never actually done a séance before.”
I stared at her. “Are you kidding me? This was your suggestion.”
“Yes, I know. I’ve seen them done, of course. My mom does it all the time. She used to do them in our house when I was a kid, but now she lives in a studio, she does them in the shop. They’re hugely popular. I swear she makes more money from séances than she does selling coffee. And you know how we West Coast people love our coffee.”
It was true. As a native Oregonian, my blood was a pretty even mix of rainwater and caffeine. My mother insisted I drank too much of the stuff. She’d quit years ago and now only drank herbal tea. She said she felt so much better and had more energy. I wasn’t sure how that was even possible. Besides which, I didn’t just drink it for myself. I drank it for the safety of others. Talking to me before my first cup in the morning was a very dangerous thing.
“Okay, so you’ve seen your mom do it. Think you can replicate it, at least?”
“I think so,” she said. “At least well enough to fool people. For the most part, it’s theatrics. Although in my mom’s case, she’s the real deal.”
Was she serious? “Excuse me?”
“Mom’s a sensitive. I mean, I told you ghosts aren’t like what we see in the movies. They’re more like...impressions people leave behind. She can pick up on those old emotions and whatnot. She can feel what they felt in life. And that’s what she passes on to her clients.”
“A sensitive.” I knew I was repeating things, but I couldn’t help it.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t get her gift. I guess that’s why I started ghost hunting. I want to prove to all the people who’ve made fun of her and people like her that the ghosts are real. Maybe I can’t see or feel them like she can, but I know they’re real.”
I shook my head. “Fine. Whatever. As long as you can do this thing convincingly. It’s the best chance we have of forcing the killer’s hand.”
She frowned. “Is it safe?”
“Are you kidding? Lucas was in
the Israeli army. If anyone can keep you safe, he can.” I might still be pissed at him, but I had no questions about his abilities.
“Okay.” She didn’t look totally convinced, but she wandered off to collect whatever accoutrements she needed for her little theatrical event. At least it would get me out of another night of ghost hunting.
AT AROUND ELEVEN-THIRTY that night, I made my way into the drawing room where Rupert and Bill had set up a round table large enough to seat everyone. The table was draped with a cream-colored lace cloth. A single candlestick with a white wax taper candle sat in the middle of the table. I assumed it was for focus or something. Near it was a box of matches. Jez stood next to the table fiddling with something.
I stared at her. “What are you doing? And what on earth are you wearing?”
She had a turban on her head made from what looked like old curtain material. The large floral pattern was very 70s, as was the odd polyester sheen. She wore a black and white silk kimono over jeans and a Doctor Who t-shirt.
“It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? But Bill insisted I look the part.” She lifted the hem of the kimono with a frown. “This is his robe, apparently. I hope he washed it.”
Gross. “Right, but that doesn’t answer the question: what are you doing?”
“Oh, this is part of my equipment. I’m going to record the session. Both video and audio. I can check it later to see if we got any visitors.” Her eyes sparkled with excitement.
I was at a loss for words. This was all fake. Something to goad the killer. She was acting like she thought an actual ghost might show up and parade around in front of the camera. I pinched the bridge of my nose and begged anyone listening to give me patience.
“All righty, then,” I said with false cheer. “Let’s get this show on the road. What should I do?”
“Nothing we can do but wait for the others to join us. Okay, I think that’s good.” She gave a last adjustment to her equipment and then plopped down in one of the chairs at the table. “When everyone’s here, we’ll light the candle and dim the overhead lights. Then we can begin. I hope they’re all into this.”
