The Hotspur Affair: A Richard & Morgana MacKenzie Mystery

by Jack Flanagan

  And then there were the stairs. In the middle of the concrete floor was a descending set of metal stairs and a hatch, like those found between levels in submarines. They were gray in color; the stairs were narrow and steep.

  “Come on, move along, Kyle. Time is a wasting.” I said, goading my brother forward.

  “I did say it is a small room, remember,” answered Kyle. “And to put it bluntly, if you think that I will be going down that ladder-like thing over there . . . well, you’ll just have to think about something else . . . . Peterson!”

  “Sheriff.”

  “You and my brother,” commanded Kyle, more for Peterson’s benefit than for mine, “go down those stairs and see where they lead.”

  “Right,” said Peterson. He squeezed past my brother and me and went to the stairs. “Dr. MacKenzie, do you want to go down first?”

  “You go first, Deputy. I’ll be right behind you,” I said with wary curiosity. “And what will you be doing, Kyle, while we’re gone.”

  “Why, I’ll, eh,” Kyle mumbled, “I’ll be conducting the investigation of this previously unknown room with the Trooper Cobourne.”

  “That should take you all but a minute . . . And you, Joe?”

  Snapping out of some of contemplative state, Joe replied, “I’ll be here holding vigil.”

  “A vigil for what?” I asked.

  “Why for your safe return . . . No, really, I’m still too sore and achy to climb stairs like those,” said Joe pointing to the metal ladder that disappeared into a small opening in the floor.

  I gave no protest. The stairs were narrow and steep, and Joe certainly did look too mangled for the climb down.

  Peterson took a deep breath and led the way down the steps. I followed. My childish zeal for one-upmanship over my brother had me momentarily forgetting about my phobia concerning ladders. Before I knew it, I was looking away from Kyle and staring down into the gap in the floor. Holding onto the cold, slimy, parallel stair railings, my heart began to race. Going up ladders wasn’t my difficulty; it was the going down that always proved to be a challenge. Either because I may have a touch of vertigo, or I have big feet, or a combination of both, I never found it comfortable to descend steep, narrow stairs or ladders.

  So with each downward step, I became disoriented and unsure of foot. My size eleven feet on the metal rod rungs only increased my sense of insecurity. The dim light and the steep angle of descent toyed with my depth perception. The combined result of my predicament led to several missteps. In short, my twelve-step journey, shall I say, was way too exhilarating for someone of my age and physical condition to do on a regular basis.

  When my anxious feet hit the ground, I made a quick appraisal of our destination. I concluded that we were in a room that had similar dimensions as the one above us. But unlike the chamber above me, this one was dusty, cobwebby, and not empty. Not far from the stairs was an old safe, about the size of a motel room refrigerator. I spotted it in the shadows as I descended. This rusting steel cube was up against the back wall; its door was open, and it was empty. I was about to give the relic a closer look when Peterson hailed me.

  “Hey, there is another door.” The deputy targeting his flashlight into the darkness.

  “Another door?” I focused on Peterson’s find. Where does that lead? I wondered.

  “What did you say?” inquired Kyle from above.

  “There is another door down here,” repeated the deputy more loudly.

  “Yeah, another door. We’ll take a look,” I shouted back up to Kyle with false enthusiasm, adding under my breath, “but, please, dear God, no ladders.”

  #

  CHAPTER 9

  Peterson’s discovery looked very much like one of those watertight doors found on a ship. Constructed from heavy-gauge steel, the door was about five feet in height and a little shy of three feet in width. At six points, it was flanked by several dog-lever locking mechanisms. The door and its metal frame were painted in battleship gray, matching the color scheme of the second chamber— concrete floor, ceiling, and walls.

  “Your uncle had a very . . . ah, strange, ah . . . lifestyle,” said the deputy as he studied the door.

  “It appears so . . . more than I ever dreamed that he had.” My words drifted off as I noticed an old-fashioned, turning type of light switch on the wall, just right of the doorway. Without giving a second thought, I gave the nob a twist. A solitary light bulb went on above the door. “Humph, it works.”

  “The light doesn’t make this place seem any prettier,” remarked Peterson.

  “Definitely not. There are more stylish bathroom stalls at Penn Station than this place. . . . I wonder,” I mused aloud, “if uncle knew about this place? But he must have.”

  “What was that,” asked my companion.

  “Nothing, just thinking.”

  “Don’t do that down here,” said Peterson nervously. “Think quietly to yourself.”

  “Right, I’ll try not to think around you,” I muttered with the thought that Peterson was feeling claustrophobic. “Now, let’s see what’s on the other side of this door?”

  “What is going on down there?” beckoned my brother, inquisitively.

  “We’re going to try to open the door,” I hollered as I motioned Peterson to do the honors.

  To our surprise, the metal barrier wasn’t locked. In fact, it was ever so slightly ajar. Grabbing one of the brass levers on the door, Peterson gave a push, and, lo, the door easily swung open to reveal a long, dark tunnel about six and a half feet high and five feet wide. Though I couldn’t see any water about, our discovery smelled dank and moldy.

  “Sheriff,” yelled Peterson, “there is some sort of passageway.”

  “Where does it go?”

  “I can’t tell,” answered the deputy. “But it seems to go on quite a ways.”

  “Kyle,” said I, breaking into the conversation, “I think the passageway veers in the direction of the ruins of the old mansion. Drop down another flashlight. Peterson and I will go and have a look-see.”

  “Here take mine . . . Bombs away.” Kyle’s flashlight dropped from the ceiling into my hands. “And, Peterson,” Kyle warned his deputy, ”don’t do anything stupid. Stay in touch with me on your radio.”

  Turning our backs to the ladder, Peterson and I entered the tunnel. Unlike the concrete chamber, the tunnel’s construction appeared to be cut out of the rock with the occasional use of concrete buttressing.

  The deeper into the subterranean corridor we traveled, the mustier the air became. Along the way, we spotted several dark blotches on the stone floor where water had collected and where patches of black mold had taken up residence. For the walls of the passageway, well . . . they felt cold, damp and, at times, slimy.

  After a hundred paces or so, I gave a look back from whence the deputy and I had come. It confirmed what I had thought when we started our spelunking promenade. The passageway gradually curved to our left, in the direction of the old mansion. When we could no longer see the entrance to the tunnel behind us, Peterson tried to contact Kyle via his radio about our progress, but it was to no avail. He then tried to contact my brother with his cell phone, but he couldn’t get a signal. Accepting the situation, we both agreed that my brother would just have to wait a bit longer for a report.

  Our six-minute trek through the musty passageway ended with an encounter with another gray-painted, watertight door. Like its twin that we left behind, this door was also unlocked and partially open.

  Peterson and I eagerly stepped out into the fresh air and daylight. “I don’t believe it,” I exclaimed. I recognized our location instantly; we were standing amid the rubble in the old mansion’s basement. “When I was a boy,” I said to Peterson, “I sneaked down here to play.” The familiarity of my surroundings sent me wistfully talking about my childhood memories. “I used to explore these ruins when Kyle took his nap, unbeknownst to our mother.”

  I then took a good look at the door and noted the contrast
between its two sides. The door’s exterior side bore the marks of time. The trailing stains of neglect had darkened and lengthened considerably since the last time I saw them decades ago. The countless assaults by the seasons had pitted the metal and flaked large sections of paint off the door in large irregular patterns. I thought it ironic that a door designed to defy the elements was, in fact, slowly being devoured by them.

  In contrast, the interior side of the door displayed no such time-rendered abuse. The door’s surface was a bit gritty to the touch and a little bit slimy too, but it gave the impression that it had been minimally maintained over the years.

  “When I was a kid, this door was always closed. I believed that it was rusted shut and hid the electrical system for the old mansion,” I said to Peterson.

  “Well, that wasn’t correct,” blurted Peterson as he fiddled with his radio.

  No, it wasn’t. Except for the door, everything I knew about the old mansion came from Uncle Raymond. He said that the place originally had three floors and a side tower of some sort on its west side. There was an observation platform on the top of the tower, where one could see down into the valley. The building’s overall design was that of a Norman-style mansion house. It must have been magnificent in its day, but alas, as the poets would say, the house is “no more.”

  The roof, tower, every floor, and the walls were pulled down and removed to parts unknown after the fire back in the 1920s. What wasn’t toted away was used in an attempt to back-filled the basement. For whatever reason, the job was never completed. Heaps of rubble of various heights dotted the area, and between these craggy mounds, deep cavernous pits and little valleys formed. This sorry human attempt to cover the scar on the earth offered Mother Nature a chance to reclaim what was hers on her own terms. Small trees and the random growth of bushes and weeds blanketed the rubble, offering woodland inhabitants refuge from civilization. The sylvan setting became a perfect refuge for a young boy to have some very imaginative adventures.

  “I chased a rabbit down here once when I about eleven years old,” I remarked as I took a look at forgotten landmarks of our surroundings. “I rather had hoped that the critter would lead me to Alice’s Wonderland.”

  “If you don’t mind me saying so, Doc,” quipped Peterson, “I think we are in a sort of wonderland right now.” Staring at a semi-nude statue of Venus that was half-buried in debris, the deputy was dutifully trying to radio my brother. “Sheriff, Sheriff, can you read me . . . ?”

  “Peterson?” Kyle’s electronic voice scratched through the air. “It’s about time you two called in.”

  “Sheriff, I tried—”

  “What do you mean, you tried?”

  I motioned to Peterson for the mic. “Hey, Kyle! Your voice is scaring the rabbits.”

  “What? Rich! What happened to—”

  “Hey, Peterson tried to get you on the radio, and then by his cell as well. No signal when you’re underground, go figure . . . but we’re outside now, in the ruins of the old estate . . . in what was the basement. Take a stroll over here and take a look for yourself.”

  “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Take your time. Don’t give yourself a heart attack. Ah, we may need some help in getting out of this pit, so bring all the gang with you.”

  “Will do,” tersely replied Kyle, sounding like a TV cop. “Stay out of trouble. Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Nothing will happen until you get here. Peterson and I are not going anywhere.”

  In hindsight, I’m sure, my words had tempted fate. I handed the mic back to the deputy and started to brush the dust and rust off my pants when—

  POW! . . . Click . . . Click . . . POW! . . . Click . . . Click.

  Two shotgun blasts exploded nearby, sending fragments of dust, twigs, and leaves flying past our faces. Intuitively, Peterson dove for the ground, pulling me with him. We quickly crawled behind a pile of bramble-covered bricks for cover. In an instant, Peterson was back on his radio.

  “Sheriff . . . Sheriff—”

  “Peterson? What’s up now?”

  “We’re being shot at!”

  “What?”

  POW! Click . . . Click.

  Another shot exploded from out of nowhere. By the sound of its impact, it was very wide off its mark, if we were the targets.

  “You aren’t getting away this time!” hollered our invisible assailant.

  “Can’t talk now, Sheriff,” blurted Peterson. “We’re being shot at again!”

  POW! Click . . . Click.

  Peterson let his mic go and drew out his sidearm. He stuck his head up and peered through the brush to spot our attacker.

  “Can you see anything?” I asked.

  Pow! Another blast came our way, spraying dirt and debris into the air. Peterson immediately ducked for cover.

  Click . . .Click.

  “Can you see where the shots are coming from?” I asked Peterson, trying not to sound panicky, which wasn’t easy.

  “They are coming, undoubtedly, from—”

  POW! Came another shotgun bast hitting an old rotted plank a few yards away to our right.

  “Who is shooting at us?” I asked in a strained voice

  “I don’t know, but I saw a flash in the brush over on that little hill, about thirty yards out to our right. But,” Peterson added with terror in his eyes, “there may be two people after us. I saw some movement in the weeds along the basement ledge toward our left. I think that we are being encircled.” The deputy spoke again into his mic; his voice was harsh and demanding. “We need assistance, immediately. We are being surrounded. Can’t get a visual on attackers. Repeat. We are being surrounded—over.”

  No reply.

  My heart leaped. I heard something moving in the brush along the top of the basement wall about twelve feet behind us. I looked in the direction of the sound, but I saw nothing.

  “Did you hear that?” I whispered.

  “Yeah, they are at our front door and back. We’re trapped!” Keeping vigilant, Peterson shot glances in every direction as he spoke.

  Seconds ticked by like minutes. The two of us were frozen in place—waiting, listening, dreading. Then, in the distance, we heard an indistinct grumble—for lack of a better description.

  “Dr. MacKenzie, did you hear that?” whispered Peterson.

  I did. I also heard the sound of heavy footsteps approaching toward us on our right. Peterson readied his weapon. “I never killed a man, you know,” said the young deputy, quickly making the sign of the cross. In preparedness, I grabbed a nearby rock.

  There was a crunch of twigs, a rustle of leaves.

  My heart skipped a beat.

  “Hey . . . are you guys okay?”

  “Kyle?” I gasped.

  With the first peek of his campaign hat coming into view, Peterson yelled, “Sheriff!”

  “Anyone hurt?” My brother took a long deep breath, followed by a series of shallower ones. “I got here”—several breaths—“as soon as I could.” My brother bent himself forward, putting his hands on his knees, and continued to breathe hard. My heart went out to him. He must have used every fiber in his being to reach us.

  “Kyle, get down!” I yelled. “Someone was shooting at us.”

  “I know. Nothing to worry about.”

  “What?”

  “Your shooter was only Doug Mapledale.”

  “Who?” The name didn’t sound familiar to me but must have been to Peterson. He calmly holstered his gun and wiped his palms on the side of his pants.

  “Who was shooting at us?” I asked again.

  “Doug Mapledale. He is Uncle Raymond’s neighbor on this side of the property,” said Kyle, now standing upright with his hands on his hips and breathing deeply, but less urgently. “He is relatively new to the area.”

  “Why was he shooting at us?” I said as I followed Peterson up a pile of broken concrete chunks.

  “He really wasn’t shooting at you two.”

  “He w
as after the beast again, wasn’t he?” added Peterson as we came to what remained of an old stone stairway that led out of the pit to the high ground above.

  “Ayuh,” said Kyle, giving the deputy a helping hand to surmount the last two steps.

  “I should have guessed that.” Peterson shook his head, annoyed with himself. “How many times does this make . . . three?”

  “Four,” said Kyle, confidently as he stretched out to give me a hand to negotiate the wobbly, top stone steps. “Plus, the battery just went out on his hearing aid. He couldn’t hear anyone if they used a bullhorn next to him . . . and to make matters worse, in his rush to give chase, he grabbed the wrong pair of glasses.”

  “Wait, wait a second,” I said, “he was going after what?”

  “Something that doesn’t exist . . . Hey, pay attention to where you’re walking.” Kyle pointed at my feet.

  Looking down as I came up the stairs, I noticed the top stone step had broken out of its mortar perch and was inching its way toward a twelve-foot drop to the basement floor. “That would be a bad fall,” I said with new trepidation.

  “It sure would be,” affirmed Kyle sarcastically. “Glad that you two explorers didn’t do something stupid.”

  Noticing Kyle was still breathing heavily, I asked, “Talking about being stupid. You didn’t have to run to tell us everything was okay. We weren’t going anywhere.”

  “I didn’t want the deputy shooting his gun off unnecessarily. He could have hurt somebody. Besides, I have to account for each bullet. I hate paperwork.”

  “Why didn’t you just use the radio?”

  “It . . . eh, well, I dropped it, and the battery fell out.”

  “You what?”

  “So, do you want to press charges?” asked Kyle, changing the topic.

  “Huh? You dropped your radio?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Kyle, brushing my question aside. “Do you want to press charges against Mapledale?”