Storm Island: A Kate Pomeroy Mystery (The Kate Pomeroy Gothic Mystery Series Book 1)

by Linda Watkins

  Thus, I continued down the older tunnel, lighting my way as I went until the water bottle filled with kerosene was empty.

  Finally, I came to a circular space where two tunnels branched. Both were much narrower than the one I was in and, checking my compass, I noted that the one to the left continued south, while the one on the right veered off slightly to the southwest, toward Stormview.

  From all indications on the map, I was at the spot where there should be a door or stairway leading to the carriage house.

  I grabbed one of my water bottles from my pack and took a generous drink as I looked around. Where was the entry to my house? And, where was the smaller tunnel to the silo?

  I walked the room’s circumference, running my hands along the rock walls as I went. On the far wall, deep in the shadows, I finally found something … a recessed wooden door, which had to be the entry to my house.

  I was tempted to try it, but changed my mind. I could do that later. Right now, I had to find the way to the silo. Sloane had said that he believed it was concealed with a boulder or some stonework, so now I hunkered down and ran my hands along the walls in front of me, willing something to move.

  It took a while, but finally I found a small pile of stones in front of a larger boulder. The rock, at first, appeared to be wedged tightly into the granite that formed the wall, but, after some work with my hands and the tools in my bag, it finally budged.

  Rolling it aside, I peered down into a narrow tunnel that reminded me, not in a pleasant way, of an MRI machine. The only difference was that this passageway was longer, darker, and scarier. Gauging its width and height, I knew wearing the backpack would be an error and might result in my becoming wedged in the narrow space.

  I sat back on my haunches for a moment, thinking about my options. I could leave. Go back through the tunnel, get in my car, and go home. Once there, I could find the silo again and use a rock to break that damned window. That would be an easier way to get inside. But, as I thought about this, I knew I couldn’t do it. There was something about that window that was telling me not to damage it. No, I would have to do things the hard way and stay in the tunnels.

  Decided, I gazed at my backpack. I couldn’t leave it behind. It held tools that might be vital to my survival. Finally, I decided to tie the pack to one of my ankles and, thus, I could drag it and its much-needed cargo along behind me. The flashlight and miner’s cap I would keep with me, but everything else would go in the pack.

  Once I’d secured the backpack to my ankle, with my flashlight in hand, I took a deep breath, then got down on my belly and began to crawl into the tunnel.

  I moved slowly, inching my way along, trying not to think about Sloane’s claustrophobia or the fact that this tunnel was approximately two-hundred-twenty yards long. Every few feet or so, my head would brush the ceiling and clumps of dirt and stone would cascade down onto my face and, at times, into my mouth.

  The air was damp but stifling, and I could feel sweat dripping between my breasts as I dragged myself along. Once or twice the backpack caught on something and I tried to keep myself from panicking, afraid that I might end up stuck forever in this hellhole. Breathing deeply to calm the pounding of my heart, I prayed that the end of the tunnel would soon be in sight.

  The passageway seemed to go on forever, but, finally, my light caught sight of the end and I scurried along toward it like some sort of human crab, moving as fast as I was able.

  Pushing myself from the tunnel, I gulped in deep breaths of what was, comparatively speaking, fresh air. Then, I pulled myself to my feet, stretching my cramped muscles as I did so.

  After I had stretched, I looked around. I was in a circular room and I could hear the sound of running water. Was I near a natural spring? It would make sense. Maude would have wanted to build her panic room in close proximity to fresh water.

  Consulting the map, I was sure the entrance to the silo was somewhere in this space. I gazed around, but no entryway was readily apparent. I put my backpack down and turned to my right to begin searching for a recess of some sort or, even better yet, a doorknob. In this manner, I slowly made my way around the room. Unfortunately, in no time, I was back to my starting point without having found anything.

  Frustrated, I sat in the middle of the room and pulled a bottle of spring water from my pack, drinking deeply. Where was the entrance?

  I turned on my headlight and gazed upward at the room’s ceiling. Deciding to work from the top down, I started to scan the walls, from ceiling to floor. In this manner, I began to make my way, once again, around the room.

  I was about halfway through when I found something … a rusted iron chain hanging from a ring high up the on wall. It was old and blended in well with the dark rocks from which it hung. I wondered if it was still in working condition, but, even if it was, how would I get to it?

  Standing, I stretched on my tippy-toes, but the chain was just out of my reach. Taking a deep breath, I bent my knees and jumped into the air.

  Almost … my fingers brushed the metal links but failed to grasp them.

  I tried again, without success.

  “Crap!” I exclaimed. I had come so close. But I was not going to admit failure yet.

  Inhaling deeply several times, I crouched and, using all my strength, jumped again.

  This time, my hand wrapped firmly around the final ring and my weight pulled it down. A door, which had been invisible a moment before, suddenly appeared in the rock wall and as the chain lowered, it opened, revealing a stone staircase.

  I gazed inside … at the top was a trap door, just as Sloane had described.

  The stairs, like the walls, were wet and, as a result, slippery. I placed my backpack purposely inside the door, to prevent it from closing and trapping me. Then, carefully, I climbed, knowing that a fall now could be fatal. At the top, I studied the trapdoor.

  There was a black iron ring in its center, and I assumed there had once been a rope attached to it to pull on. I tried grasping the ring, but the door didn’t budge. Using my flashlight, I studied the perimeter of the opening. It was caked with mud and debris from years of disuse.

  Inside my backpack was one tool I hadn’t thought I’d need. I quickly descended the staircase and rummaged through the bag until I found it … a putty knife.

  Back at the top of the stairs, I used the knife to loosen dirt and plant-like debris that were causing the door to stick. When I thought I’d done the best I could, I pulled on the ring again. It still didn’t budge.

  Trying to contain my frustration, I once again went to work with the knife, then used its handle to bang on the door, to loosen whatever was holding it in place.

  I grabbed the ring again. This time it moved, slightly.

  Heartened, I repeated the procedure two to three more times before, finally, the trapdoor swung open, almost knocking me over in the process.

  Hastily, I scanned the interior with my flashlight, then, without further ado, hoisted myself up inside the stone silo.

  The Panic Room

  SITTING ON THE wooden floor, I took a deep breath. I’d made it. I was inside the stone silo … just like my mother before me.

  Not knowing where to begin, I started to scan the room with my torch when, surprisingly, the oil lamp began to glow, its soft light illuminating the inside of the strange little house.

  Amazed, I turned off my flashlight and gazed around. The room felt strangely familiar and cozy, sort of like an old shoe. Its walls were, indeed, lined with bookshelves, all of which were full to bursting. I stood and walked over to them, running my fingers over the dusty volumes. I spent a minute or two reading spines, discovering novels of the period, books on metaphysics, alchemy, and other esoteric writings. One whole bookcase was devoted to notebooks or journals, all written in the same hand, which I assumed was that of Maude Prichard. Some of her writings were in English, but others I recognized as French, Spanish, and Latin. She was, truly, a renaissance woman.

  I picked up one of
the dusty journals, opening it to a page at random. It was a recipe for a poultice that was to be used for gout. I smiled as I read it, my mind awash with wonder. A person could spend years here just reading and translating.

  As I returned the journal to its place on the shelf, the light from the oil lamp flickered, then seemed to brighten, drawing me over to the desk. Gingerly, I traced the scrolled carvings on the arms of the chair with my fingertips, then sat on its red velvet cushion and leaned back.

  My mother had once sat here just as Maude Prichard had before her. I took a moment to inhale the history around me, then looked down at the desk.

  Sitting in the middle were two journals, one on top of the other. The first one was the one I’d spied from the window and it was still opened to Poem for Summer. But underneath was another volume and, as I moved the first book aside, my heart began to pound.

  Hidden beneath the first journal was my mother’s book … her journal from that final summer … the summer she was murdered.

  I stared at it, almost afraid that it might suddenly disappear in a puff of smoke. Finally, with shaky hands, I reached out and ran my fingers over the cover. It was warm.

  I gasped.

  As I touched the journal, the room was suddenly alive with the perfume of roses. Breathing it in and knowing that, somehow, my mother was near, I looked up.

  “Mom?” I whispered.

  There was no answer, at least not in words. The air around me swirled and the sweet scent intensified. Was it her spirit … her ghost … or just her memory? I didn’t know, but somehow I didn’t care. I closed my eyes, remembering her and letting myself be surrounded once again by her love.

  I think I could have sat there forever, but the silo had other plans. The scent of roses abruptly dissipated and a cold, biting gust of wind suddenly swirled in the small room, extinguishing the oil lamp and plunging everything into darkness.

  Goosebumps raised on my arms. Was this a warning from my mother? Would I be in danger if I stayed here longer? I didn’t want to stick around to find out.

  Quickly, I grabbed my mother’s journal and stuffed it into the pocket of my sweatshirt. At the same time, I turned on my headlight and pulled the torch from my jacket pocket.

  It was time to get the hell outta there.

  I lowered myself carefully down through the trapdoor onto the top step, then pulled the door shut behind me

  When I arrived back at the tiny tunnel, I could feel the cold and damp begin to permeate my clothing. Shivering, I stared at the opening, wishing there were some other way to get home. But, on the plus side, I knew that when I finished my crawl, I could go directly to the carriage house and not have to navigate the maze all the way back to Lonely Lane. My car, of course, was there, but I could take my bike to it and drive the vehicle home later.

  Taking a deep breath, I, once again, tied the backpack to my ankle and shimmied my way inside.

  The journey seemed shorter this time, although I had to stop once or twice and calm myself as the fear of getting stuck washed over me.

  I was sweating profusely, despite the chill of this underground labyrinth and, by the time I pulled myself out of the tunnel, I was covered with dirt and mud. I took a moment and brushed myself off and stretched, then walked back to the larger tunnel to search for the carriage house entrance.

  I was surveying the area when, to my surprise, I heard voices that seemed to be coming my way from one of the tunnel’s tributaries. Instinctively, I ducked into a corner recess, extinguishing the lamp on my miner’s cap.

  From out of the darkness beyond came the beam of a high-powered flashlight, followed by two men, one of whom I recognized immediately.

  It was Raoul.

  The two men were in heated conversation, voices raised; however, the gist of their argument was lost on me as they were not speaking English. The language sounded like some Eastern European dialect, possibly Russian, and, as they walked past me, I thought I recognized the second man, but from where I couldn’t recall.

  I huddled in my corner, holding my breath, until they disappeared into the darkness. Resurrecting the map in my mind, I deduced the men were coming from the bootlegger’s storage room and were on their way to Stormview. I wondered what they were doing in the tunnels and I thanked God that the torches I had lit previously had died out during the time I was in Maude’s panic room.

  I stayed hidden for a while longer, afraid the men might return, then, finally, stepped out and, with more urgency than before, began again to hunt for the carriage house doorway.

  It was, like the tunnel to the silo, well hidden, but I finally found it. Dirt and debris had been smeared across the door’s outline, making it almost imperceptible in the dim light of the tunnel.

  The door apparently hinged inward and I cleaned it off to determine where it began and ended. Surprisingly, once clean, it looked well used. There was no dirt caked in the crack around it and I wondered if someone, perhaps Raoul, had used it to spy on me.

  I pushed on the door and it opened easily. Relieved that I was finally home, I hoisted myself up and laughed at what I saw. My shoes, lined up like little soldiers, were staring at me … I was in my bedroom closet!

  Mom’s Journal

  I RESEALED THE trapdoor, amazed at how perfectly its wood grain aligned with that of the hardwood floor. Once closed, the door was virtually invisible.

  I stripped off my clothes, shaking my jeans and sweatshirt over the wastebasket, trying to get as much of the caked-on dirt and mud off as I could. Then I jumped into the shower and scrubbed myself clean.

  Wrapped now in my robe, I checked my landline phone for messages. There were two.

  The first was from my father wanting to know where the hell I was. I would call him back later. The second was from Jeremy.

  “Katy, I’m still stuck on the road looking for that damned engine part. I got a message that a guy here in Wiscasset had one, so here I am. Turns out the part was for a different model boat. Going to Vinalhaven tomorrow to see another guy. I’ll call you from there.”

  I considered phoning him back or texting him, but decided against it. He wanted “space” and I was going to give it to him.

  I poured myself a glass of chardonnay and sat down on the sofa. What the hell had Raoul been doing in those tunnels? And who was that man he was with?

  I sipped my wine pondering this and wondering if they know about the doorway that led to my house. And, if they did, had they used it? I thought about the scurrying creature from my nightmare and wondered if Raoul had anything to do with that hallucination. If I ever found out he did, there would be hell to pay.

  Thinking about this made me angry and I considered going up to the manor house and confronting him, but knew in my heart that would be a fool’s errand. Now was not the time to venture down that pathway or act irrationally. No, first I needed to find out what my mother knew. What it was she’d overheard … words so damning that someone killed her for them.

  Sighing, I pulled out her journal … the one I’d taken from the stone silo, and opened it to page one: Poem for Summer.

  As I stared at the poem, I wondered how this little book had made its way from the attic at Stormview to Maude Prichard’s silo. There had been footprints in the dust on the attic floor, but as I recalled their size, knew they had to have been made by a man. And, if that were true – that a man had stolen Mom’s journal – then how could he have made his way through the narrow tunnel to the silo? It just didn’t make sense. Perhaps a man initially stole the book and then someone or something stole it from him. I thought about the aroma of roses that had surrounded me in the silo. Was it a ghost … my mother’s ghost?

  All this was too much for me to comprehend, so I put it aside and began, instead, to read the journal, hoping to find whatever it was that had upset my mother so much.

  I read for about an hour … poems, lists of things to do, reminders, and anecdotes about life here on the island. Nothing was terribly inflammatory, and, at
the worst, her writing was mildly sarcastic and amusing. But, I was only one-third of the way through. What I was looking for might be on the next page.

  I got up and refilled my wine glass and pulled some crackers and cheese from the fridge. I was preparing to sit back down when the phone rang.

  My father.

  “Hi, Dad,” I said.

  “Katherine, where have you been? We’ve been trying to reach you all day.”

  “Oh, I just did a little island exploring. Sorry, the time got away from me. What’s up?”

  “Well, we were going to invite you to go sailing, but that’s over with. But, come up for dinner. I’ll be leaving in a couple of days and would like to spend just a little more time with my best girl.”

  I laughed. “Sure. Nothing fancy, I hope.”

  “No, nothing fancy. It’ll be just Hettie, Raoul, and me. Think we’ll do the lobster thing.”

  “Okay. Sounds good. I’ll see you shortly.”

  I hung up and checked my watch. It was almost six. Just enough time to change and do something with my hair, which was still wrapped in a towel. I’d have to get back to Mom’s book later.

  I started to get up, but the phone rang again, startling me.

  Hoping it was Jeremy, I answered.

  “Katy?”

  It was Sloane.

  “Yes, Sloane. It’s me. And, yes, I went into the tunnels.”

  “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me everything.”

  I spent the next half-hour giving him an abbreviated account of my adventure. He pressed for more, but time was slipping away and I needed to go.

  “Listen,” I finally said. “I’m expected at Stormview in a few minutes and I’m not even dressed. Can I call you tomorrow? Or, better yet, meet you?”

  He was silent for a moment. “Okay, I’ll drive down tomorrow morning. Meet you at the same place?”

  We agreed to a time and hung up. I then hurried to the bedroom and threw on a clean pair of linen shorts and a blouse. I tied a cardigan around my shoulders in case it should get chilly, slipped into my sandals, then went to the bathroom to fix my hair.