1 Death Pays the Rose Rent Read online

  “Michael Thorne?” I asked.

  “Yeah, we were best friends back then. We took our duties as explorers very seriously. We started with some of the natural tunnels and caves that run under the town and made maps as we went along. I think we both felt a little like Columbus discovering a new world. Anyway, we eventually found a tunnel that would take us from the town straight out to Silverthorne Castle. To get there, you had to pass a beautiful underground lake, probably the one where the kid drowned years ago. You can read a description of it in a book called The Illustrated History of Lickin Creek.”

  “I already have,” I told him. “That’s what got me interested in the caves in the first place.”

  “We found all kinds of stuff down there, things that told us what had happened in the past. There was clothing, remains of old fires, old tin cooking utensils, and once we found a diary that belonged to an escaped slave. He and others hid down there waiting for a chance to escape further north by the Underground Railroad. Worst of all, although we thought it was real exciting at the time, we found a skeleton in a Union Army uniform. We thought he must have been a deserter who hid down there and got lost.”

  “What did you do with him?” I asked.

  “Left him. He’d already been there a hundred years. What would be the point of disturbing him?”

  “Well, to give him a proper burial, I suppose.”

  “He wouldn’t be any deader in a grave than he already was. Somehow he seemed to belong there. To be perfectly honest, neither of us wanted to touch him.”

  “You could have told someone.”

  “Then they wouldn’t have been our caves anymore.”

  I could understand that. “Did you keep the maps you made?”

  “Sure did. For a long time I had the idea that someday I might write a book about the tunnels, with the maps in it, but then I started thinking that might not be a good idea. People would start exploring on their own and make a mess down there, or get lost and need to be rescued, or go down there to do drugs, or …Oh, hell, there’s lots of reasons not to.”

  Besides, I thought, then they wouldn’t be your caves anymore.

  He finished the last of his tuna salad, put down his fork, and said to me, “I just had an idea. There’s a tunnel entrance under the building that the Historical Society uses as its headquarters. I had to go into their basement a few months ago when Miss Effie thought she heard a prowler down there. Turned out to be a rabid raccoon, but I saw that the archway was still open. There’s a small room that used to be open to the public, but the steps down to the basement began to rot, so the Society closed that part of the house some years ago. If you’d like, I could show it to you.”

  I jumped up. “I’m ready to go.”

  He looked critically at my yellow outfit.

  “You look awfully nice. It’s kinda dirty down there.”

  “A little dirt never hurt anything,” I said gamely. “Maggie, thanks for everything.”

  “My pleasure,” she said with a smile that showed she really meant it. “Say, if you wouldn’t mind, could you do me a little favor?”

  “Sure, anything.”

  “Stop by the library when you’re through and pick up the Edison biography that Miss Thorne wanted. Maybe you could drop it off at Silverthorne Castle on your way home, if it isn’t too much trouble.”

  “No trouble at all. I’ve been invited over there tonight, so I’ll just take it to her then.”

  We each paid for our lunch and said good-bye on the street. Garnet and I walked down the pleasant, tree-shaded sidewalk. He moved with the grace of a wild animal, his eyes constantly sweeping the area, searching for signs that things weren’t quite right.

  “It’s hard to believe you and Michael Thorne were best friends. You seem so different,” I commented. “I met him at the Thornes last night.”

  “People change as they get older. We went off to different colleges, and by the time we graduated we just didn’t seem to have much in common anymore. After I became police chief, I moved into the little house I’d lived in as a kid, and I’ve been very happy with my rural lifestyle. Michael chose a much more exciting life—always on the move—New York, Los Angeles, even toured Europe in a play. Married a TV star. Looking back, it wasn’t unexpected … he was always the creative one …lead in class plays …editor of the yearbook … all that artsy stuff, while I was just your typical small-town jock.

  “But don’t get me wrong. We’re still friends. I was real happy for him when he bought the Whispering Pines Summer Theatre. It brings him back to town every summer, so we’ve had a chance to get to know each other again. Old friendships seem to become of more importance as you grow older.”

  I thought of Alice-Ann and agreed.

  We stopped in front of a white frame town house, with forest green shutters. I noticed the ground-floor shutters were solid wood, while the upstairs ones were louvered.

  Garnet looked down at me with a small frown.

  “Speaking of old friendships, you’ve known Alice-Ann for a long time, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, we met in college and were roommates for four years.”

  “Then you know about her and Richard?”

  “I’ve just learned they’re having problems.” I didn’t want to discuss Alice-Ann with a stranger.

  “I thought you might know why he didn’t come home last night.”

  I was astounded. My jaw probably dropped six inches. “How did you know that?”

  “His secretary called my office just before lunch. He didn’t show up at the office this morning, and when she called his house, Alice-Ann hung up on her. Rather natural, under the circumstances, I’d say.

  “Anyway, I called Alice-Ann, and she told me that Richard had gone out last night, and she’d gone straight to bed and didn’t realize until this morning that he hadn’t come home.”

  I thought about Alice-Ann driving off after him in the VW.

  “Did you hear anything unusual last night?” he asked me.

  “I saw him go off on his bike. I thought I heard it again, later, but I don’t remember hearing him come home.”

  “Did he and Alice-Ann have a fight last night?”

  “You’d better ask Alice-Ann,” I told him stiffly, beginning to resent his questions. “What do you think you’re doing—interrogating a murder suspect?”

  “Sorry, Tori. Just trying to keep on top of things.

  He probably just decided to take a break from both of them.”

  “What do you mean …both of them?”

  “Alice-Ann and his typing tootsie, Twanya Tweedy. I’m not telling you anything that isn’t common knowledge all over town. I can’t understand why Alice-Ann doesn’t boot his ass out the door.”

  “If you were married and had a son, you might understand why she doesn’t want to give up on the marriage. You’re not married, are you?” I asked innocently.

  “No. Are you?”

  I shook my head. “Not even engaged.” Now, why did I think I had to say that? Guess I was just overwhelmed by meeting two good-looking, blue-eyed men in less than twenty-four hours! And one of them available!

  He gestured at the green-shuttered building. “This is the Historical Society headquarters. Let’s go in.”

  We entered the building through a small foyer. To our right, a cantilevered staircase curved gracefully up to the second floor. On the left, in what must originally have been the parlor, was the office-library-storage room of the Lickin Creek Historical Society. Gray file cabinets lined two of the walls, even stood in front of the windows and on both sides of the lovely Adams-style fireplace. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves covered the other two walls, filled with leather-bound volumes of some antiquity. Oak library tables, in the center of the room, were littered with bundles of old newspapers and stacks of books. It looked a little like my apartment. On the floor lay a gorgeous Persian rug, glowing like a jewel.

  A wisp of a woman sat at a desk in the far corner, almost hidden behind th
e pile of books in front of her. At first glance it appeared she had daisies sprouting from her head, but then I realized she was wearing a hat that must have been in her family since World War n. I’d seen pictures of my grandmother in something just like it. Little tufts of yellowish white hair stuck out from under the hat like dried straw.

  She peered up at us through the top of her trifocals. “Why, it’s the chief. What a lovely surprise.” The daisies nodded their approval.

  Garnet stepped across the room in three long strides, leaned over the desk, and kissed her cheek. “How’s my favorite girl?”

  They spent a couple of minutes asking each other about the health of various relatives before Garnet introduced me and told her the reason for our visit.

  She looked worried. “Oh, please do be careful on those steps. I’m so afraid they’re going to collapse someday and someone will get hurt.”

  “Don’t worry about us, Miss Effie. We’ll be very careful, I promise,” Garnet told her.

  She led the way through the old dining room and kitchen and opened the basement door. “Don’t let the ghosts get you,” she said with a pixielike smile.

  I perked up. “Ghosts? Is this building haunted?”

  “I was saving that for a surprise, but now the cat’s out of the bag,” Garnet said, directing a smile toward Miss Effie that said he really didn’t care. He picked up the flashlight from a shelf next to the door and aimed

  its beam down the stairs. “Follow me and be sure you only step where I’ve stepped.”

  The stairs creaked alarmingly but held together under our combined weight. At the foot of the stairs was another door. Garnet swung it open and we entered the basement. It would be more appropriate to call it a cellar than a basement. The walls were of thick, rough gray stone, and the floor was simply packed earth. The whole place had a damp, moldy odor that surprisingly wasn’t unpleasant. Stacks and stacks of old newspapers were piled up against the walls; a real fire hazard, I thought.

  Garnet moved the flashlight slowly, giving me time to see every part of the large room. Above us, ancient wooden beams supported the floors of the house. Several had split and were propped up by huge wooden pillars. Would the house collapse if one were knocked over? An enormous coal furnace stood in the center, its pipes stretching in every direction like the arms of a giant octopus. Built into one wall was a deep fireplace, big enough for Garnet to stand in.

  “The fireplace was for cooking. This would have been the summer kitchen,” Garnet told me.

  “You mean women were actually expected to come down here to cook? That’s horrible.”

  “In the days before air-conditioning, it was most likely a lot more comfortable down here than it was upstairs. And while you’re feeling sorry for the poor housewife, don’t forget her husband was outside in the heat, working the fields. Life wasn’t easy for anyone a hundred years ago.”

  He moved the beam of light to the back of the room, and I saw a dark opening, framed by a brick archway.

  “That’s it,” he said. “Follow me and be careful where you put your feet.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” I told him. So of course, the very next thing I did was stub my toe on a piece of rock sticking out of the dirt floor. I bent over to grab my toe and fell down.

  “Shit,” I muttered.

  Garnet knelt down beside me. “What happened?”

  “Stubbed my damn toe,” I said between clenched teeth.

  “Shouldn’t have worn sandals,” he said unsympa-thetically.

  “I didn’t exactly know I was going to be tramping around in a cellar when I got dressed this morning.”

  He took my foot in his big hands and examined it gently. “Looks okay. You’ll have a bruise, but nothing’s broken.”

  He stood, grabbed me under the armpits, and hoisted me to a standing position. “You’d better take my arm. I promised Miss Effie you wouldn’t get hurt.”

  He made an elaborate production out of escorting me across the cellar. Each time we came to an overhead pipe or a low beam, he would hold his hand over my head and make sure I bent over low enough to avoid getting clobbered. Then, before we took another step, he would shine the light directly in front of me so I could see if there were any obstacles in my way. I went along with the game, clinging like a Victorian heroine to his muscular biceps, and enjoying

  the cinnamony smell of his aftershave. It suited his country-style masculinity.

  We finally reached the archway, and he shone the light inside. I saw a small room, carved out of solid rock.

  “See any ghosts?” he asked.

  “Should I?”

  “If there really are such things as ghosts, this is where they’d be. During the Civil War, this place was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Escaped slaves were hidden in this room until it was safe to move them. In the meantime, the entrance to the room would be boarded up and hidden by putting heavy shelves full of canned goods in front of it. To a casual observer, there was no sign of a room at all.”

  “Where do the ghosts come in?”

  “In the summer of 1864, fifteen people were hiding in there, mostly women and children. As usual, they had been given food and water for a few days, and the entrance was sealed from the outside. Unfortunately, General Early’s Confederate cavalry chose that day to appear. They surrounded the town and demanded five hundred thousand dollars in greenbacks or one hundred thousand dollars in gold, or they would burn the town down. The poor people of Lickin Creek did what they could to scrape up the ransom. They knew that the town of Chambersburg, across the mountains to the east, had been burned to the ground just a few weeks earlier when the residents refused to pay up.

  “The Rebs took what money the people had, then began to break into the homes looking for anything of value to steal. Frightened for their lives, most of the villagers fled to the country. Some hid in the hills, while others barricaded themselves in Silverthorne Castle.

  “Sadly, for the unfortunates in this basement, the owner of this home was one of those who left town. It was several weeks before the occupying army left and the villagers returned home. All fifteen of the escaped slaves were found dead, starved to death in this little room.”

  I felt a cold whisper of air on my neck and shuddered. “What a horrible story!”

  “It always seems to be the innocent who suffer the most during war. The real tragedy was that they could have escaped easily, if they’d known about the tunnels.”

  He stepped into the room and knelt on the floor. “Hidden a couple of inches under the dirt on the floor was the trapdoor that leads down into the caves. Those poor people died just inches away from freedom.”

  He brushed away some dirt and exposed the wood planks of the trapdoor. He lifted it and laid it to one side. “Ready to explore?” he asked with that endearing, crooked grin on his face.

  I leaned forward and peered down into the black hole. All I could see was the top of a wooden ladder, which disappeared into the darkness below. There seemed to be no bottom.

  “Is that ladder safe?” I asked.

  “It was the last time I used it—about fifteen years

  ago. Probably been chewed on a bit by termites since then.”

  I wasn’t about to let him scare me. “I’m ready,” I told him.

  He handed me the flashlight, then started down, tentatively testing each rung with a foot before putting his whole weight on one. I pointed the flashlight at him, but he finally descended so far that I couldn’t see him anymore.

  “Come on,” he yelled. “It’s safe.”

  I stuck the flashlight in the waistband of my pants, which left me in total blackness. I was completely disoriented, but I managed to climb down, one rung at a time.

  It was unbearably still. I felt alone, terribly alone. I didn’t even know if I was anywhere near the bottom.

  “Garnet?” I called out.

  No answer.

  “Garnet! Where the hell are you?”

  Silence.

&
nbsp; “Garnet. Please answer me,” I begged, almost in tears.

  His voice, almost in my ear, said cheerfully, “Okay, you’ve made it,” and his strong arms lifted me off the ladder and set me down on the blessed firmness of the cave floor.

  “Why didn’t you say something?” I demanded an-grily.

  “Wouldn’t have dreamed of it. You seem to like your independence so,” he teased.

  “There’s a time and a place for—”

  “Give me the flashlight,” he cut me off, grinning!

  I thrust it at him, and he immediately headed down the tunnel. I followed close behind, looking around at what I could see in the dim glow of the flashlight. Near the foot of the ladder were some wooden shelves—someone’s old food-storage area. The tunnel was so narrow that two people couldn’t walk side by side, and so low that Garnet had to bend over to keep from bumping his head. Water trickled over the rough stone walls to land in puddles beneath our feet. As we walked, we were continually moving downward into the earth.

  “I love it down here,” Garnet said. “Always reminds me of one of my favorite books when I was a kid, Five Boys in a Cave.”

  “Why, that was one of my favorites, too. I’ve never even met anyone else who’s heard of it.”

  “Town librarian recommended it to me, right after I read Tom Sawyer,.”

  “The same thing happened to me. Those two books are one reason why I’m so fascinated by caves. I read everything I can find—” I was so busy talking that I didn’t realize Garnet had stopped walking, and I bumped smack into his broad back.

  “Watch it, kid,” he said, not unpleasantly. “Remember the fat kid in Five Boys in a Cave?”